Roman Giertych
Member of Parliament
Born in 1971. Lawyer and historian. Former Deputy Prime Minister 2006-2007 in a coalition government with PiS. Member of Sejm 2001-2007 and from 2023.
A special character
Roman Giertych is a strange animal. Once I hated him deeply, today I’ve grown to love him. He was born into a semi-fascist family and as a young man was chairman of the Polish Youth, which also has and had authoritarian nationalist tendencies. He is a devout Catholic, although I get the impression that his religiosity may have weakened a little over the years. From 2001-2007 chairman of the Polish Family League party.
Conservative
His views are conservative, he is anti-abortion, but has shifted dramatically in terms of worldviews in the last 15 years. Whereas he used to be fiercely sceptical of the EU, he now sees the EU as a necessity and is pragmatic in his worldview, which he is willing to subject to the necessary politics.
End of friendship with Kaczyński in 2007
Minister of Education and Deputy Prime Minister 2006-2007 in coalition with PiS and Andrzej Lepper from the Self-Defence Party. This apparently led to a confrontation with Jarosław Kaczyński, who tried to get rid of Lepper under fabricated corruption charges. Perhaps it wasn’t Kaczyński personally who was responsible for the provocation, but he was close to the events. In any case, since then, Giertych has harboured a fervent hatred for Kaczyński, and the feeling is mutual.
Since 2007, Giertych has worked as a lawyer, where he has been close to the Civic Platform and has worked pro bono on a number of major cases. The prosecution has made several attempts to have him imprisoned, he has been arrested once, and has presumably been subjected to surveillance with the Pegasus spy device, which is designed for terrorism investigations. At the same time, since 2015 he has regularly commented on the PiS government’s judicial reforms and policies, and has also published a couple of books on the subject.
Influenced by family history
Giertych was only 35 years old when he became Deputy Prime Minister, and before that he has been heavily influenced by his family history. The father is a forestry and tree scientist with creationist views. He is extremely nationalistic, but supported the 1981 state of emergency to avoid Soviet intervention. His grandfather, on the other hand, was closely associated with the nationalist opposition to Piłsudski in the interwar period. As such, he has been extremely influenced by his family at a young age and has managed to shift his attitude over the past 15 years. Many still don’t trust him, and it was on a dispensation that he was allowed to run for the Sejm for the Civic Platform in 2023.
Please send an email to m@hardenfelt.pl if you would like an English-speaking tour guide to show you the most important places in Warsaw.
