Court confirms Polish government’s move to put state TV into liquidation

Apr 9, 2024 | Law, Media, Politics

A court has confirmed that state broadcaster TVP is in a state of liquidation. The decision was welcomed by culture minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, who in December moved to put the station into liquidation as part of the new government’s efforts to take back control of public media from the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.

On 27 December, Sienkiewicz announced that he was putting TVP, Polskie Radio and the Polish Press Agency (PAP) into liquidation, which allowed him to appoint liquidators to effectively run them.

He did so after President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally and opponent of the new government, vetoed funding for public media. Duda had done so in response to a move by Sienkiewicz a week earlier to unilaterally remove and replace the PiS-appointed management of those state media firms.

The president argued that Sienkiewicz’s actions had been unlawful, a position later confirmed by some court decisions. However, Sienkiewicz’s subsequent move to put public media into liquidation was seen by experts as less legally questionable.

In January, Warsaw’s district court approved the decision to put PAP into liquidation. By mid-February, the liquidation of all regional branches of Polskie Radio had also been accepted by courts.

However, the liquidation of TVP and Polskie Radio’s main national entity were not initially accepted by court registrars. Sienkiewicz and the stations’ new management, however, noted that those decisions were not final and subject to further court rulings.

On Monday, the court in Warsaw issued a ruling confirming that TVP is now in liquidation. The country’s National Court Register (KRS), the state register of companies, now records TVP as being in liquidation.

The decision was welcomed by Sienkiewicz, who declared that this marked “the end of the dispute over the validity of the liquidation of the abomination that was PiS television”.

During the eight years of PiS rule from 2015 to 2023, TVP was turned into a mouthpiece for the ruling party, broadcasting propaganda in support of the government and criticising its opponents. The new government that took power in December pledged to end this state of affairs.

“To those who defended this pathology,” added Sienkiewicz, “I have only one thing to say: the steamroller does not argue with the asphalt as to which way it should go.”

In a further statement, the culture ministry added that yesterday’s ruling proves that a judgement issued in January by the constitutional court – a body that remains stacked with PiS appointees – declaring the government’s takeover of public media to be unconstitutional “has no legal significance”.

Krzysztof Lyszyk, a lawyer specialising in commercial law, told financial news website Money.pl that yesterday’s decision to recognise TVP as being in liquidation “is not a surprise”.

He noted that various courts around Poland have in “the vast majority of [cases] been in favour of the admissibility of opening liquidation” of public media entities. Those courts have “not been fooled” by the constitutional court’s January ruling, he added.

This indicates “the legality of [Sienkiewicz’s] actions regarding liquidation”, said Lyszyk. But the lawyer also noted that, with regard to Sienkiewicz’s earlier move to unilaterally replace the management of public media entities, the balance of court rulings has been negative.

Now that TVP’s state of liquidation has been officially confirmed, Polskie Radio remains the only entity whose status has yet to be finally resolved.


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Main image credit: Agnieszka Sadowska / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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