Note verbale No. 3 from Stary Wiarus

Stary Wiarus, blogger, presents his compliments to Mr B. Bix Aliu, charge d'affaires ad interim of the United States of America in Warsaw,  and has the honour to advise as follows:

1. It has come to my attention, through the services of The New York Times, that the Biden Administration is considering appointing Mr Mark Brzezinski to the position of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Poland.

2. Such appointment is, regrettably, legally unfeasible under the Polish law, because Mr Mark Brzezinski is a dual citizen of Poland and the United States.

3. Mr Mark Brzezinski has acquired Polish citizenship at birth, by descent from his father, the late American diplomat and political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017). Zbigniew Brzezinski was a natural born Polish citizen, born on 28 March 1928 in Warsaw, Poland, of the Polish citizen father Tadeusz Brzezinski, a pre-WW II Polish diplomat, and the Polish citizen mother Leonia Brzezinska, née Roman.

4. Zbigniew Brzezinski became a naturalised citizen of the United States in 1958, but had never resigned, relinquished or renounced his citizenship of Poland.

5. Under Section 14 of the Polish Citizenship Act (Ustawa z dnia 2 kwietnia 2009 r. o obywatelstwie polskim, Dz.U. 2012, poz. 161) Polish citizenship by descent is acquired when at least one of the parents is a Polish citizen. Polish citizenship by descent is passed on in perpetuity, without limitations of time or number of generations.

6. Under Section 3 of the same Polish legislative act, a dual citizen of Poland and another state is regarded by Polish law as an exclusively Polish national, and cannot validly invoke privileges and obligations of another citizenship while on Polish territory or otherwise under the Polish jurisdiction.

7. Consequently, a dual national of Poland and the USA cannot be validly accredited as an American diplomat in Poland, due to the inherent conflict between the requirements of the Polish nationality law and the obvious requirement of undivided loyalty to the United States.

8. The Polish State cannot legally issue a diplomatic accreditation in Poland to a person the Polish law regards as a citizen of Poland. It would also be constitutionally unfeasible in Polish law to grant to a Polish national on Polish territory the relevant diplomatic immunities and privileges unavailable to other citizens.

Stary Wiarus avails himself of this opportunity to renew to Mr B. Bix Aliu his sincere assurances of his continuing highest consideration.