Polish Legislation During the Pandemic Vs. Corruption Anti-Crisis Shields: Completing the Law and Justice State Project?
Polish Legislation during the Pandemic vs. Corruption Anti-crisis Shields: Completing the Law and Justice State Project? Grzegorz Makowski, Marcin Waszak All crises – economic, health, military or other – not only create inherent problems but often spawn indirect threats, too. Corruption is usually one such indirect, yet serious, factor that will aggravate a crisis. It tends to accompany less prosperous spells, as people concentrate on the more burning issue of saving their lives or assets, or trying to recover. People are less attentive to standards and pro- cedures, and less prone to be financially transparent or accountable. Moreover, crises require rapid, tough decisions. Policies and procedures tailored to normality may be seen like a burden. While laws and procedures lack relevance during of crisis, discretionary behaviour finds an easy way in, which is always a major factor breeding corruption, as Robert Klitgaard rightly pointed out. Corruption is a complex phenomenon. For once, it fits the classic Klitgaard ‘equation’: Corruption = 1 Monopoly of Power + Discretion – Accountability. Accountability is not plausible without transparen- Stefan Batory Foundation cy, which will be fundamental to our analysis later in this paper. Yet the nature of corruption may be better captured in terms of particularism, when relatively narrow groups (a political party, an interest group or a particular social group) are capable of controlling various public, business and other insti- tutions whose resources should, in principle, be accessible based
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