Notary involved in Polish’s government public media takeover charged by prosecutors

The notary who drew up documents the government used to change the management of public media has been charged by prosecutors with knowingly certifying false information. They say their findings show the documents were not produced at the time and place indicated on them.

The development marks another escalation in the controversy surrounding the takeover of public media last month, and another potential blow to the government, which has been accused of acting unlawfully not only by the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party but also many legal experts.

The notary in question, who can be named only as Joanna K. under Polish privacy law, has yet to be informed about the charges as she is currently abroad.

“Prosecutors carried out searches at Joanna K.’s notary’s office, as well as at the culture ministry, collecting the necessary evidence, including surveillance footage of where and when the notarial acts were allegedly concluded,” announced the district prosecutor’s office in Warsaw, quoted by the wPolityce news website.

They added that people connected to the incidents had also been interviewed and, “in the light of the evidence collected, the prosecution concluded that there were reasonable grounds to bring charges against Joanna K. for certifying untruths in notarial acts concerning changes in the management boards of public media”.

The possible misrepresentation of where and when the documents were created was first pointed out by journalist Marcin Dobski of the Salon24 news service.

He noted that after parliament passed a resolution calling for changes to the management of public media late on 19 December, the culture minister, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz then made those changes the same day.

Dobski pointed out that meant the minister had taken the steps to change the management at three media companies – TVP, Polskie Radio and the Polish Press Agency (PAP) – and then confirmed those in notarised documents within the space of less than two hours.

“Resolution was adopted at 10.13 pm. Within 107 minutes before midnight: Sienkiewicz goes to the ministry, leads general meetings (of TVP, PAP, PR),” wrote Dobski. “Five notarial documents are produced. Verification, reading, etc. Reach [notary’s office at] 2 Puławska [street]. Impossible. Has false information been certified?”

The information was quickly picked up by politicians from PiS – which was in power from 2015 until last month – who demanded the release of Sienkiewicz’s official schedule, access to the entry and exit book at the ministry, and copies of CCTV footage.

Separately, a court decision has effectively found that Sinkiewicz’s actions on 19 December to replace public media boards were unlawful, as many legal experts had already argued.

Later, Sinkiewicz instead moved to put public media companies into liquidation, but that process has also raised legal doubts and was subject to two negative court decisions last week.

The government, however, has defended its actions, arguing they have been necessary to “depoliticise” public media, which had been turned into propaganda mouthpieces by PiS.

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Main image credit:  Grzegorz Dabrowski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.