Request to lift legal immunity of former Polish justice minister Ziobro filed to parliament

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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.

Poland’s prosecutor general, Waldemar Żurek, who also serves as justice minister, has asked parliament to lift the legal immunity of his predecessor in the former Law and Justice (PiS) government, Zbigniew Ziobro.

Prosecutors want to bring charges against Ziobro for 26 alleged crimes committed during his time in office, including establishing and leading a criminal group and abusing his powers for personal and political gain. If found guilty, he could face up to 25 years in prison.

The move marks a major step in efforts by the current government – a broad coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk that replaced the national-conservative PiS in office in December 2023 – to bring to account former PiS officials for alleged crimes.

Ziobro was one of the key figures during PiS’s time in office, serving as justice minister and prosecutor general from 2015 to 2023 and overseeing a radical and highly contested overhaul of the judiciary. Two of his former deputy justice ministers are already facing charges for alleged crimes.

On Tuesday morning, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor general’s office, Anna Adamiak, announced that Żurek had sent a request to parliament for consent to bring charges against Ziobro.

As an MP, Ziobro enjoys legal immunity unless a majority of fellow MPs vote to lift it. Given that the government has a majority in parliament, it appeals likely that Ziobro’s immunity will be lifted, as has happened with a number of other PiS figures.

In a statement, Żurek’s office said that prosecutors have gathered enough evidence to conclude with “high probability…that Zbigniew Ziobro committed 26 crimes” relating to the administration of the Justice Fund.

That fund, which is managed by the justice ministry, is meant to be used to support victims of crime, as well as for certain other initiatives to reduce crime or rehabilitate criminals.

However, Ziobro was regularly accused of using the fund for political purposes and, in one case, to unlawfully finance the purchase of Israeli-made Pegasus spyware, which was in turn used to surveil some figures opposed to the PiS government.

Prosecutors say that Ziobro used the fund “to obtain financial benefits for other people and for personal and political benefits, jointly and in agreement with identified persons, including Dariusz M., Marcin R. and Michał W., and other unidentified persons, in an organised criminal group which he founded and led”.

The three identified individuals, whose surnames have been masked by prosecutors under Polish privacy law, are all PiS politicians, the latter two previously serving as Ziobro’s deputy justice ministers.

Prosecutors say that Ziobro “directed the commission of crimes by subordinates”, including the order to use 25 million zloty from the Justice Fund for the purchase of Pegasus. At a press conference today, Adamiak said that a total of 150 million zloty was misappropriated from the fund in relation to Ziobro’s alleged crimes.

Ziobro’s abuses of power and failure to fulfil his legal duties were “to the detriment of the public interest, causing damage to the property of the State Treasury, and to the detriment of private interests, by limiting the availability of funds to entities entitled to obtain them”, claim the prosecutors.

In addition, they list five cases in which they allege Ziobro failed to initiate proceedings in relation to cases reported to him, and that he instead concealed them. One of those related to allegations that a member of his family had connections to a “fuel mafia”.

Prosecutors have also requested that Ziobro be taken into pretrial detention, given “a justified fear of failure to appear for scheduled proceedings, hiding or fleeing, and of unlawfully obstructing proceedings by destroying original documentation”.

If he is found guilty, he could face up to 25 years in prison, said Adamiak

Ziobro himself had not commented on the prosecutors’ announcement at the time of writing. Previously, he has denied any wrongdoing during his time in office and has accused the current government of pursuing him as part of a “political vendetta”.

Yesterday, Ziobro announced on social media that he had just arrived in Budapest, where he said he was going to “show my Hungarian friends” how Tusk’s government is “violating laws” and “turning the media into a mouthpiece for their party propaganda”.

Last year, one of Ziobro’s former deputy justice ministers fled to Hungary after police in Poland issued an arrest warrant for him. He was subsequently granted political asylum there, prompting a diplomatic dispute that resulted in Poland withdrawing its ambassador from Budapest.

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.

Note: this article has been updated to acknowledge that Ziobro could face up to 25 years in prison, rather than 15, as originally reported.

Main image credit: Adam Guz / KPRM (under public domain)

Daniel Tilles

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.