Hungary grants political asylum to Polish opposition politician

Dec 19, 2024 | Law, Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Hungary has granted political asylum to a Polish opposition politician, Marcin Romanowski, after he fled an arrest warrant in his homeland for alleged crimes committed during his time serving as a minister in the former Law and Justice (PiS) government.

A senior official from Hungary’s government, which is an ally of the national-conservative PiS party, says they believe Romanowski would not receive a fair trial in Poland. However, Poland’s foreign minister says that he views Budapest’s decision as a “hostile act”.

Police in Poland have been hunting for former deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski since last week, after a court approved a request from prosecutors for the politician, who is still a sitting member of parliament, to be placed in pretrial detention.

With the authorities unable to locate Romanowski, a domestic arrest warrant was issued for him one week ago. After further days of fruitless searches by the police, yesterday prosecutors requested that a court grant a European arrest warrant, saying they had evidence he was abroad.

That request was approved today. But Romanowski’s lawyer, Bartosz Lewandowski, subsequently announced that Hungary has accepted Romanowski’s request to grant him international protection due to the “politically motivated” case being brought against him.

“Marcin Romanowski indicated that he cannot count on a fair trial in Poland due to the political involvement of some judges,” wrote Lewandowski, adding that his client would be willing to face charges if they were brought “once the standards of the rule of law are restored in Poland”.

That was later confirmed by Gergely Gulyas, the head of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s office, who told news outlet Mandiner that Romanowski “did indeed come to Hungary and request political asylum from the Hungarian state…[and] he was granted it, in accordance with Hungarian and EU law”.

Gulyas claimed that there was “concrete evidence of a lack of a fair trial” for Romanowski in Poland. He pointed to the fact that earlier this year Romanowski was detained and charged by Polish prosecutors despite enjoying immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

As a result of that, a court ordered Romanowski to be released. PACE then stripped Romanowski of immunity, opening the way for him to be charged again.

 

In response to today’s news, Anna Adamiak, the spokeswoman for Polish prosecutor general Adam Bodnar, told broadcaster TVN that, even if Romanowski is granted international protection, “it cannot prevent Hungary from carrying out the procedure related to this European Arrest Warrant”.

She explained that the request for Romanowski to be brought to Poland would next have to be considered by a Hungarian court, which would decide if there are any grounds to refuse to hand the politician over.

Adamiak admitted, however, that this was an “unprecedented case” not envisioned in the regulations regarding European Arrest Warrants.

Meanwhile, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, declared that Poland “considers the decision of Viktor Orbán’s government…to be an act hostile to Poland and the principles of the EU”. He said that the Polish government, which has often clashed with Orbán, would announce its response tomorrow.

Romanowski is accused by Polish prosecutors of 11 crimes – including participating in an organised criminal group, using crime as a source of income, and abusing power – relating to his time as deputy justice minister in the PiS government, which ruled from 2015 until the end of last year.

The new government, a broad coalition led by Donald Tusk, has made holding former PiS officials accountable for alleged corruption and abuses of power one of its priorities.

In addition to Romanowski, prosecutors are seeking to bring charges against a number of former PiS government ministers, including Mariusz Kamiński, Michał Woś and Michał Dworczyk.

PiS has argued, however, that the new government is using the justice system for political purposes, in order to attack the opposition. During its own time in power, PiS was widely seen by international organisations, many Polish courts, and the Polish public themselves to have politicised and undermined the justice system.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Robert Kowalewski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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