Poland’s ex-ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has complained to the Council of Europe on January 25 over the new government’s “attack on public media, prosecutor's office and human rights violations related to torture.”

The complaint is the latest instalment of political conflict in Poland that has grown ever more intense since the new four-party government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk took over in mid-December.

"Resolutions that we submitted to the Council of Europe show what has happened only during the first month of the Tusk government: an attack on public media, the prosecution, and human rights violations related to torture. This is unacceptable,” said Arkadiusz Mularczyk, an MP for PiS.

The Tusk government rose to power with a key promise of unravelling PiS’ judiciary reforms, restoring the rule of law and “true” public media, and putting an end to PiS’ cronyism in state-controlled companies.

Since taking over, the new administration has moved swiftly to wrestle control of key institutions from the hands of PiS loyalists. Amidst controversy as to the methods, the new government is now in control of the public media and the National Public Prosecutor's Office – to which PiS has responded by saying PM Tusk is carrying out a coup.

"We are in an extraordinary situation and the constitution has practically ceased to apply. The way out is a transitional period, with a new government, and then elections. There is no other way to resolve this," PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski told reporters in the Polish parliament.

Kaczynski spoke a day after the controversial pardon by President Andrzej Duda of two former PiS MPs, Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik. Their conviction late last year and the subsequent imprisonment in January cemented PiS’ rhetoric on the Tusk government as “tyrannical.”

While in prison and allegedly on a hunger strike, Kaminski was reportedly tube-fed, according to his son. That raised questions about inhumane treatment.

PiS maintains that Kaminski and Wasik are incumbent MPs – the Polish constitution says otherwise – and gave the two full support in their plans to return to the parliament.

“We want to appear in the parliament in a planned and very precise manner … but on our terms, not on yours,” Kamiński in an interview with wPolsce.pl, a pro-PiS news website, addressing the parliament’s Speaker Szymon Holownia. 

A parliamentary session is underway until the evening of January 25. The next session has been planned for February 7-9.

The ruling coalition has responded by telling Kaminski and Wasik that their release from prison might only be temporary since they will be subject to more investigations, including one into the alleged illegal use of the Pegasus spyware by PiS to infiltrate the opposition ahead of the election last October.