Prosecutors from Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) have asked the Supreme Court to waive the immunity of one of its judges.
They are seeking to file criminal charges against him over a ruling he made in 1982, which the prosecutors say was “in line with the repressive policies” of the then communist authorities.
Józef I. (who has a legal right to anonymity) is accused of unlawfully convicting a 21-year-old man for mocking the state and inciting strikes by distributing anti-regime leaflets. He received a jail sentence of three years as a result.
The IPN – a state body charged with documenting and prosecuting communist crimes – has been conducting an investigation into the case since October 2018.
Its Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation says that, as a judge of the Warsaw Military District Court, Józef I. “unlawfully sentenced a worker from Oświęcim, Leszek W., to three years of imprisonment for producing and distributing leaflets depicting the contours of Poland surrounded by barbed wire,” reports PAP.
Józef I. convicted Leszek W. for “publicly ridiculing the Polish People’s Republic” and “encouraging riots and strikes” through distributing the leaflets. Yet, according to IPN, this was not justified at the time under either criminal laws or the decree introducing martial law.
In 1992, after the downfall of the communist regime, the Supreme Court overturned Leszek W.’s conviction in a review requested by the Chief Military Prosecutor.
It found that the leaflets were a legitimate expression of views which did not contain mockery of the state, and that only participation in strikes, rather than incitement of them, would have been a criminal offence.
The IPN’s prosecutors also argue that proceedings in the Warsaw military court abused procedures, making the trial “unfair”. They believe the conviction of Leszek W. was meant to chiefly serve as a “deterrent” and was thus “in line with the repressive policy of the PRL [communist] authorities” towards activists.
“The judgment was, therefore, an act of state lawlessness, and the judges who issued it cannot benefit from the protection afforded [to] judges…under their statutory rights and obligations,” concluded the commission.
The body is also investigating other judges from the same court, reports PAP. There are currently 15 motions filed by the IPN to prosecute former judges and prosecutors who issued judgments under martial law in the 1980s.
The IPN has previously said that judge Józef I. presided in seven cases in military courts after martial law was introduced in December 1981, of which some resulted in prison sentences or suspended sentences.
The controversial disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court has recently stripped two judges – Igor Tuleya and Beata Morawiec – of their immunity at the request of prosecutors seeking to bring charges against them.
Both judges – who have been prominent critics of the government’s judicial policies – say the accusations against them are politically motivated. They also refuse to accept the legitimacy of the disciplinary chamber, which was created as part of those policies.
The Supreme Court itself has found the chamber to “not be a court [under] EU and national law”. In April, the Court of Justice of the European Union ordered it to suspend disciplinary activity.
On Monday, the European Union’s justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, expressed concern about the fact that the chamber has recently deprived judges of their immunity.
Main image credit: Spens03/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
