Andrzej Sebastian Duda is a Polish lawyer and politician who has served as president of Poland since 6 August 2015.
29 Facts About Andrzej Duda
2.
Andrzej Duda was the presidential candidate for the Law and Justice party during the presidential election in May 2015.
3.
On 26 May 2015, Andrzej Duda resigned his party membership as the president-elect.
4.
Andrzej Duda was born on 16 May 1972 in Krakow, to Janina and Jan Tadeusz Andrzej Duda, professors at the AGH University of Science and Technology.
5.
Between 1987 and 1991, Andrzej Duda attended Jan III Sobieski High School, Krakow, where he excelled in Humanities.
6.
Andrzej Duda subsequently studied law at the Jagiellonian University, and earned a law degree.
7.
Andrzej Duda began his political career with the now defunct Freedom Union Party in the early 2000s.
8.
From 2008 to 2010, during the presidency of Lech Kaczynski, Andrzej Duda was an undersecretary of state in the Chancellery of the President.
9.
In September 2013, the news magazine Polityka commended Andrzej Duda for being one of the most active members of parliament, describing him as being open to opposition arguments and as refraining from personal attacks, as part of his role at the Commission for Constitutional Responsibility.
10.
Andrzej Duda remained a member of the Sejm until he was elected to the European Parliament in 2014.
11.
Andrzej Duda was Komorowski's Law and Justice rival in the election.
12.
The first five-year term of Andrzej Duda began on 6 August 2015 with taking an oath of office during a National Assembly session.
13.
Andrzej Duda repeatedly met with general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, stating that "Polish companies will benefit hugely" from China's Belt and Road Initiative.
14.
Andrzej Duda said that he hopes Poland will become a gateway to Europe for China.
15.
In November 2015, on the basis of Article 139 of the Constitution of Poland, Andrzej Duda pardoned former Central Anticorruption Bureau head Mariusz Kaminski and three CBA officers convicted by a court of 1st instance in the so-called "Land Affair", marking the first pardon granted by a president before reaching a final verdict.
16.
Andrzej Duda refused to swear in any of the five Constitutional Tribunal judge candidates selected by the Sejm of the VII term.
17.
On 3 and 9 December 2015 Andrzej Duda swore in five other candidates for the same office selected by the Sejm of the VIII term.
18.
On 28 December 2015, Andrzej Duda signed the Constitutional Tribunal bill, which unequivocally breaches the Constitution of Poland according to the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland, the Public Prosecutor General and the Polish Ombudsman.
19.
In June 2016, Andrzej Duda rejected appointing 10 judges selected by the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland.
20.
In July 2017, Andrzej Duda informed the public he had decided to veto two controversial judicial bills backed by the government and passed by both houses of the Polish parliament.
21.
The veto was just one example of Andrzej Duda opposing the policies of PiS.
22.
In February 2018, Andrzej Duda said that he would sign into law the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, making it illegal to accuse 'the Polish nation' of complicity in the Holocaust and other Nazi German atrocities, a measure that has roiled relations with Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu going as far as accusing the Polish government of "Holocaust denial".
23.
Andrzej Duda awarded it in recognition of Mosberg's achievements in advancing Polish-Jewish dialogue and developing cooperation between nations, and for preserving the memory of and communicating what happened in the Holocaust.
24.
In June 2020, Andrzej Duda said that he would not allow gay couples to marry or adopt children, while describing the LGBT movement as "a foreign ideology" and comparing it to indoctrination in the Soviet Union.
25.
Andrzej Duda pledged he would ban LGBT teaching in schools.
26.
On 4 July 2020, Andrzej Duda proposed changing the constitution to ban LGBT couples from adopting children.
27.
Andrzej Duda's father-in-law is Julian Kornhauser, a well-known writer, translator and literary critic.
28.
Andrzej Duda is a keen skier, he participated in the Polish Academic Championships in Alpine skiing while he was a university student.
29.
Andrzej Duda took part in religious ceremonies on many occasions, including Midnight Mass, the blessing of food on Holy Saturday, or the Corpus Christi procession in Krakow.