Polish justice ministry publishes interactive map of alleged misspending of funds under last government

Poland’s justice ministry has released an interactive map showing how, under the previous government, money from a fund intended to support victims of crime was used to apparently boost the election campaigns of candidates from the party that controlled the ministry.

It shows that nearly 90% of the money in question went to districts in which candidates from the Sovereign Poland (Suwerenna Polska) party were running. They received an average of 7.7 million zloty (1.8 million) each in funding compared to an average of 1.5 million for districts in which there were no such candidates.

The data add to a growing series of revelations in recent weeks regarding alleged abuses in how the so-called Justice Fund was used under the former government. Yesterday, the justice minister, Adam Bodnar, requested that an opposition MP be stripped of immunity to face charges in one such case.

The money in question comes from the Justice Fund, which is meant to be used by the ministry to support victims of crime, to help rehabilitate criminals, and to prevent crime.

The data released by the ministry pertains to grants awarded from the Justice Fund on a discretionary basis, meaning through decisions made directly by justice ministry officials without first running a public contest for the funds.

Between 2019 and 2023, 2,043 grants together valued at a total of more than 224 million zloty were awarded on that basis. Just over 201 million zloty of that sum went to districts in which Sovereign Poland (which until last year was known as United Poland) candidates were standing.

Map showing where money was allocated (source: justice ministry)

“The data examined show that funds were not distributed according to soundly analysed needs and objective criteria, and that some municipalities were excluded from the process,” said the justice ministry in a statement yesterday.

“This is a shocking picture of how the state functions and how public money is spent,” added current justice minister Adam Bodnar during a press conference.

Bodnar is a member of the new ruling coalition that came to power in December. They replaced a government led by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, in which Sovereign Poland was a junior coalition partner.

Sovereign Poland is led by Zbigniew Ziobro, who served as justice minister and prosecutor general in the PiS-led government from 2015 to 2023.

The justice ministry notes that one of the districts which received the largest amount of funds, 19 million zloty, is where then deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski was a candidate at last year’s parliamentary elections.

Romanowski was responsible for overseeing the spending of the Justice Fund. He has featured prominently in secret recordings made by the former administrator of the fund who has now become a whistleblower in the investigation into abuses in the disbursement of money from it.

The primary beneficiaries of the grants were volunteer fire brigades and hospitals. Sovereign Poland politicians often attended ceremonies at which equipment paid for with the Justice Fund was handed over.

Analysis of the data also shows that significantly more money was spent in this way in the election years of 2019, 2020 and 2023 than in years without elections.

After yesterday’s release of the data, several Sovereign Poland and PiS politicians rejected allegations that the money was improperly spent. They argued that it was used for the purposes intended.

“I publicly apologise for money going to the district where I live for firefighting equipment to save the lives of victims of road crime and arson,” wrote Sovereign Poland MP Dariusz Matecki sarcastically on X. “I apologise for money going to public hospitals.”

“Today, we live in a world of inverted ideas, where they try to discredit and depreciate activity for the common good!” wrote PiS spokesman Rafał Bochenek, adding that he will “always support any initiative for the benefit of the people of [his] region”.

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Main image credit: Ministerstwo Sprawiedliwości (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Alicja Ptak

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