Ministry of the Interior and Administration

The Ministry of the Interior and Administration is an administration structure controlling main administration and security branches of the Polish government. After the 2011 Polish parliamentary elections, it was transformed into two ministries: Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Administration and Digitization. It was recreated in late 2015.

WWW gov.pl/web/mswia 𝕏 MSWiA_GOV_PL FB MSWiARP YT mswiarp IG mswia_gov_pl

History and function

The ministry was founded in 1918 as the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It has gone through several reforms, including partial splits and mergers, throughout its history.
Following the abolishing of the Ministry of Public Security in 1954, auxiliary departments, including departmental hospitals, nurseries, and the "Konsumy" retail chain, were transferred from the MBP to the Ministry of Interior, headed by Władysław Wicha. First of all, the Ministry of Internal Affairs took over the competences related to the resident registration and registration of the population, passport matters, supervision over the Citizens' Militia, ORMO, KBW, and the Border Protection Force as well as the State Fire Service and the Prison Service.
On 14 July 1983 The Act "on the office of the Minister of Internal Affairs and the scope of activities of the bodies subordinate to him" was adopted; the Voivodeship Militia Headquarters were replaced with Voivodeship Offices for Internal Affairs, and similar steps were taken at the district and regional levels.
Massive changes began in the ministry following the appointment of Krzysztof Kozłowski, a senator on the Solidarity list of the Civic Parliamentary Club, as Deputy Minister on 7 March 1990.
During a reform of the Polish government in 1996, the administration branch was merged into the Ministry and it was renamed to its current name.

Powers and responsibilities

Traditionally, it is one of the most important governmental cabinet positions in Poland,
The ministry is responsible for the following:

The general interior security of the country, with respect to criminal acts or natural catastrophes
* including the major law-enforcement forces
** the Polish National Police
** the Polish Border Guard
* Civil defence
** the State Fire Brigade
** Search and rescue and the oversight of ambulance services
the granting of identity documents and driving licenses through the network of voivodeships
relations between the central government and local governments
logistics and organization of political elections, at the national and voivodeship levels
regulation of immigration and preventing illegal immigration
integration and registration of legal immigrants

While the ministry of the Interior supervises police forces, it does not supervise criminal enquiries; criminal enquiries are conducted under the supervision of the judiciary.
The Ministry's headquarters was located on the Stefan Batory Street, south of Warsaw's city centre and the governmental district which surrounds the Belweder. The Ministry could be referred to by its initials 'MSWiA'.
The last Minister of the Interior and Administration before it was split in 2011 was Jerzy Miller.