Polish president’s office seeks criminal charges against justice minister

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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.

The head of President Karol Nawrocki’s office has filed a request with prosecutors to investigate Waldemar Żurek, the justice minister and prosecutor general, accusing him of abusing his powers, a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

Nawrocki is aligned with Law and Justice (PiS), the national-conservative opposition, and has regularly clashed with the more liberal government. However, seeking criminal charges against a government minister marks a further escalation.

The issue in question is a regulation issued at the end of last month by Żurek that changed the rules on how judges in common courts are assigned to cases, effectively giving the heads of courts the power to override random selection.

Żurek argued that the changes are necessary to prevent cases being heard by judges who had been unlawfully appointed because PiS, when it was previously in power, overhauled the body responsible for nominating judges in a manner that rendered it illegitimate.

He also said it would prevent the common problem of the same judge being randomly assigned to many cases simultaneously, significantly slowing down the work of courts.

“Faster proceedings, shorter queues, and judgments issued by fully legal benches – that is what [this] is about,” wrote Żurek. “It is much safer for a citizen when the bench is partially selected according to rules defined in each court rather than through a central system controlled from Warsaw.”

However, PiS and Nawrocki condemned the move, saying that it was intended to bring the judicial system under political control, given that the heads of courts are appointed and dismissed by Żurek.

“The proposed rules are designed…to enable manual selection of judges based on the political needs and expectations of those in power,” said Nawrocki in a statement earlier this month.

“[It] is an ostentatious act of lawlessness…which undermines judicial independence and impartiality as well as citizens’ right to a [fair] court,” he added.

On Tuesday, the head of Nawrocki’s office, Zbigniew Bogucki, announced that they had launched two legal actions in response to Żurek’s regulation. The first is a request to the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) to examine the constitutionality of the justice minister’s decision.

The TK remains stacked with judges appointed when PiS was in power, including some who were unlawfully appointed, and is regarded as illegitimate by the government, which ignores its rulings.

The second decision announced by Bogucki was that he, as the head of the presidential chancellery, has filed a notification to prosecutors asking them to investigate Żurek for the crime of abuse of power.

The justice minister’s actions are “very likely a crime”, said Bogucki. “He is acting very consciously beyond his authority, so there is a very reasonable probability that he has committed an offence.”

As well as being justice minister, Żurek is also prosecutor general. Bogucki said that his notification would be a test of “whether the prosecutor’s office is independent”.

At the time of writing, Żurek had not commented on the presidential office’s decision to refer his regulation to the TK or to ask prosecutors to investigate him.

The current government, a broad coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, came to power in December 2023 pledging to reverse the contested overhaul of the judiciary implemented by PiS, and in particular to “depoliticise” the courts.

However, it has found its progress stymied by internal differences within the coalition and by opposition from PiS-aligned presidents, first Andrzej Duda, now Nawrocki.

Last year, Tusk admitted that his government would sometimes have to take actions that are “not fully compliant with the law” in its efforst to restore democracy.

In recent months, Żurek and prosecutors under his authority have launched legal action of their own to seek criminal charges against the head of the TK, Bogdan Święczkowski, and the head of the Supreme Court, Małgorzata Manowska, both of whom were originally PiS-era appointees.

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: Marek Borawski/KPRP

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.