Court cancels European Arrest Warrant for Polish opposition politician, citing government rights violations

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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.

A court has cancelled the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by Poland for an opposition politician and former government minister, Marcin Romanowski, who fled to Hungary and claimed asylum instead of facing charges in his homeland.

In his justification, judge Dariusz Łubowski made a series of dramatic accusations against the Polish government, accusing it of “violating human rights and civil liberties”, including the presumption of innocence. He even suggested that a “crypto-dictatorship” was being established in Poland.

The decision has been condemned by justice minister Waldemar Żurek, who called the judge’s argumentation “astonishing” and accused him of “a lack of objectivity”.

Polish prosecutors want to charge Romanowski over 11 alleged crimes – including participating in an organised criminal group, using crime as a source of income, and abuse of power – from his time as a deputy justice minister in the former Law and Justice (PiS) government.

However, after an arrest warrant was issued for him in December last year, it turned out that Romanowski had fled to Hungary, whose ruling Fidesz party is an ally of PiS. The politician was then granted political asylum later the same month.

Meanwhile, Warsaw’s district court issued an EAW for Romanowski. Hungary has, however, refused to comply with the warrant, as it argues that Romanowski would not receive a fair trial in Poland. That prompted a diplomatic row which resulted in Poland withdrawing its ambassador from Budapest.

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Today, Romanowski’s lawyer, Bartosz Lewandowski, announced on social media that the same court has now withdrawn the EAW. Lewandowski shared extracts of the judge’s justification for his decision.

“It is impossible not to note the extremely dangerous interference of the highest-ranking representatives of the executive branch in the sphere of judicial independence, an unprecedented phenomenon for a democratic state governed by the rule of law,” wrote the judge.

He said that there had been “continuous public statements regarding ongoing court proceedings and the issuing of judgments before they have been issued by the court”. This, he added, is “violates the most fundamental human rights of all accused persons, namely the presumption of innocence”.

“The court…considers it completely unjustified to publicly present the image of Marcin Romanowski as a guilty person who, after being brought to the country, will be convicted and imprisoned,” added the judge.

Such “vile statements are incompatible with the basic standards of a democratic state of law” and “directly infringe on the sphere of judicial independence”. Therefore, “there are serious concerns that the current situation in Poland could be classified as a crypto-dictatorship”.

“In this situation, continuing to uphold the EAW against a leading opposition representative, after he has been publicly ‘convicted’ by the most important representatives of the executive branch, would result in a complete loss of credibility of the Polish justice system,” concluded the judge.

The decision was welcomed by Romanowski, who declared that “the narrative of [Prime Minister Donald] Tusk’s gangsters and their lies…is completely falling apart”.

It means that Romanowski is free to move within the European Schengen area without fear of arrest. However, he cannot travel beyond Schengen as the Polish authorities have invalidated his passport.

Żurek quickly issued a statement condemning the judge’s decision, which he said had been made “during a non-public session, without the knowledge or notification of the prosecution, which raises serious procedural concerns”.

Moreover, the justification presented by the judge is “internally inconsistent and stands in obvious conflict with the case files”, added Żurek, who serves as both justice minister and prosecutor general.

“The prosecution is not backing down from pursuing Marcin Romanowski and will file a renewed application for a European Arrest Warrant. If the case returns to the same judge, a motion will be filed to recuse him due to lack of objectivity,” he added.

Lewandowski, however, responded by saying that, by trying to remove a judge who had issued an unfavourable ruling, Żurek was simply “confirming the court’s assessment that we are dealing with a ‘crypto-dictatorship'”.

Łubowski is an experienced judge who has headed the international proceedings section of Warsaw’s district court since 2018. It was he who made the decision in October not to extradite to Germany a Ukrainian man accused of involvement in sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

Today, the National Prosecutor’s Office (PK) also confirmed that Łubowski had decided to overturn the EAW on the basis of “new circumstances”, namely: Hungary’s decision to grant asylum to Romanowski, Interpol’s decision not to issue a Red Notice for him, and the government’s “violations of human rights”.

The PK noted that it had not been notified of the date of the court hearing and said that it “considers [the judge’s] decision to be manifestly unfounded”.

Since replacing PiS in power in December 2023, the current government has made holding former PiS officials to account for alleged crimes one of its priorities.

However, PiS has argued that the Tusk administration is simply pursuing a “political vendetta” against its opponents, and that it is using unlawful methods to do so.

In May this year, a group of five Republican members of the US House Committee on the Judiciary wrote to the European Commission expressing “deep concern” about the rule of law in Poland, in particular that the government is “weaponising the justice system” against the conservative opposition.

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

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.