Poland’s Supreme Court has rejected a case by state broadcaster TVP, which accused a leading legal scholar of criminal defamation for likening the station – which functions as a mouthpiece for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party – to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.
The case dates back to January 2019, when the opposition mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, had been murdered. Adamowicz had often been criticised in TVP news broadcasts, which are used to promote the government’s narrative and attack the opposition.
Three days after Adamowicz’s death, Wojciech Sadurski – a law professor at the University of Sydney and University of Warsaw – tweeted that “government media” had “hounded” the mayor. He called for all democrats and opposition politicians to boycott “Goebbelsian media”.
Po tym, jak zaszczuty przez rządowe media polityk został zamordowany, żaden demokrata, żaden polityk opozycyjny, nie powinien przekroczyć progu Gebelsowskich mediów. Niech się kiszą we własnym sosie: nieudaczników, arywistów i tow Marka Króla, jak bojkot TV przez artystów po 1981
— Wojciech Sadurski (@WojSadurski) January 17, 2019
Although Sadurski did not mention TVP specifically, the station accused him of criminal defamation, which carries a punishment of up to one year in prison. The professor “disseminated false information [that] fundamentally undermines the reputation of the company as a public broadcaster”, the station argued.
In March last year, Sadurski was acquitted in court, with the judge finding that his remarks fell within the bounds of freedom of expression, reports legal news service Prawo.pl.
TVP appealed, but the ruling was upheld by a higher court in September 2021. The broadcaster then decided to take the case to the Supreme Court. Yesterday, it was announced that the Supreme Court had rejected TVP’s case, bringing the criminal proceedings to an end.
Sadurski celebrated his victory in a series of tweets and said that TVP’s decision to bring the case against him had simply “proved the accuracy of my description…They not only target PiS’s political opponents, but also try to silence their critics, such as myself”.
Mój pierwszy komentarz publiczny po zwycięskiej kasacji w SN: „Ze mną im się nie udało, ale nie mam złudzeń, że w czasie zbliżających się wyborów ich propagandowa zaciekłość tylko ulegnie wzmożeniu. Tak potwierdzą moją diagnozę”.https://t.co/M6vMojTfSA
— Wojciech Sadurski (@WojSadurski) December 7, 2022
The legal scholar is, however, still subject to separate civil proceedings by TVP, which sued him for defamation in addition to bringing the criminal case. In September this year, a lower court acquitted him of the civil claim, but TVP again appealed that judgement.
The judge in the case noted that Sadurski’s criticism, “though undoubtedly harsh, could be justified in the factual circumstances”. She pointed to TVP’s regular negative coverage of Adamowicz, noting that the station mentioned him 1,773 times in 2018 alone – that is, almost five times a day on average.
“[Sadurski] had the right to express his own subjective assessment of the activity of the claimant company as a public broadcaster,” said the judge, quoted by Onet.
“Freedom of expression also applies to statements that offend, shock or disturb, because these are the requirements of pluralism, tolerance and broad-mindedness, without which there is no democratic society,” she added.
Nazwał TVP "Gebelsowskimi mediami". Sąd: krytyka ostra, ale usprawiedliwiona https://t.co/RyNjr4ASbq
— Węglarczyk 🇵🇱🇪🇺🇺🇸💙💛 (@bweglarczyk) November 3, 2022
Public broadcasters in Poland have always been under the influence of whichever parties are in government. However, since the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in 2015, TVP has been politicised to an unprecedented extent.
During election campaigns in 2019 and 2020, observers from the OSCE noted that the station had “acted as a campaign vehicle for the incumbent”, with a “lack of impartiality… [that] undermined voters’ ability to make an informed choice… [and] amplified the advantage of the ruling party”.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, the channel repeatedly praised the incumbent, Andrzej Duda, while attacking his main rival, Rafał Trzaskowski, whom TVP accused of working on behalf of a “powerful foreign lobby” linked to George Soros and of seeking to “fulfil Jewish demands”.
Since 2015, public trust in TVP has fallen to its lowest recorded level, according to state research agency CBOS. The channel is now Poles’ least trusted major source of news, according to an annual study by researchers at the University of Oxford.
Main image credit: Maciek Jazwiecki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
