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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.
Justyna Wydrzyńska, an activist who was convicted two years ago for providing abortion pills to a pregnant woman, has succeeded in having the conviction annulled.
An appeals court found that the presence of the judge who issued the initial verdict – who had been appointed by a judicial body rendered illegitimate due to the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government’s reforms – resulted in the lower court being incorrectly composed when it ruled on the case.
The decision means that the case will now return to that lower court, where Wydrzyńska will face a repeat of the initial trial. Under Poland’s strict abortion laws, helping someone obtain an abortion is punishable by up to three years in prison.
🔴 Sąd Apelacyjny w Warszawie uchylił wyrok skazujący Justynę Wydrzyńską za pomocnictwo w aborcji farmakologicznej i przekazał sprawę do ponownego rozpatrzenia przez sąd pierwszej instancji
🔴 W marcu 2023 r. Sąd Okręgowy dla Warszawy-Pragi skazał aktywistkę na ograniczenie… pic.twitter.com/gxqChEIDRS— Instytut Ordo Iuris (@OrdoIuris) February 13, 2025
Wydrzyńska’s case has become one of the most prominent legal battles relating to Poland’s abortion laws, which are among the strictest in Europe. The activist has received support from a number of international human rights groups.
She is a member of a collective known as Abortion Dream Team that helps women in Poland who want to terminate their pregnancies. In the case in question, a 12-weeks-pregnant woman, named only as Anna, had contacted the group seeking help to travel abroad for an abortion.
But Anna’s husband forced her to remain in Poland, so instead Wydrzyńska provided Anna with abortion pills. The husband discovered them and informed the police. Meanwhile, Anna terminated her pregnancy without using the pills sent by Wydrzyńska.
Wydrzyńska was then charged under a 1997 law that criminalises “providing a pregnant woman with help in terminating a pregnancy or inducing her to do so”.
In March 2023, Wydrzyńska was found guilty at Warsaw’s district court and sentenced to eight months of community service. She appealed against that ruling.
Her lawyers argued that, first of all, the act Wydrzyńska committed was of “low social harmfulness” and that Anna would have terminated her pregnancy anyway. Second, they said that the judge who had issued the conviction, Agnieszka Brygidyr-Dorosz, was improperly appointed.
Brygidyr-Dorosz is among the hundreds of judges in Poland who were appointed to their positions after the former PiS government overhauled the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), the body responsible for nominating judges.
PiS’s reforms – which placed the KRS under greater political control – have been deemed by European and Polish courts to have rendered the KRS illegitimate. That has in turn cast doubt on the state of the judges nominated by it, who critics call “neo-judges”.
A Polish court has for the first time removed from adjudication judges appointed through a state body rendered illegitimate by reforms introduced under the former PiS government https://t.co/9u3rx4NqrB
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 8, 2024
In Brygidyr-Dorosz’s case, additional doubts about her role in Wydrzyńska’s conviction were raised by the fact that, the day after she issued the guilty verdict, it was revealed that the then PiS justice minister and public prosecutor general, Zbigniew Ziobro, had given her a promotion.
The national-conservative PiS is strongly opposed to abortion. It was under their rule that the current near-total abortion ban was introduced and prosecutors energetically pursued cases against those accused of violating abortion laws.
On Thursday this week, the Warsaw court of appeal issued a ruling overturning Wydrzyńska conviction. Its reason for doing so was that it considered the initial judgement to have been issued by an incorrectly composed court (specifically, the presence of Brygidyr-Dorosz), reports news website OKO.press.
One of the appeals judges specifically noted Brygidyr-Dorosz’s apparently fast-track career path and the fact her promotion was revealed the day after issuing the verdict against Wydrzyńska.
A women’s rights activist has been convicted of the crime of “helping terminate a pregnancy”.
She sent abortion pills to a woman who had sought help obtaining an abortion, but whose husband discovered them and reported the case to police https://t.co/aCloNjHAfP
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 14, 2023
The new ruling means that the case must return to the district court. Wydrzyńska told OKO.press that she now faces the prospect of going through the whole process all over again.
“For Justyna, this is not a success because she is simply tired of all this,” her lawyer, Jerzy Podgórski, told broadcaster TOK FM.
Wydrzyńska, meanwhile, said that she will continue her work helping women obtain abortions. “Helping someone who needs help should never be a crime, regardless of whether the help is giving someone a cup of soup, a warm jacket or abortion pills,” she said during the court hearing.
The new, more liberal government that replaced PiS in power in December 2023 has promised to liberalise Poland’s strict abortion laws. However, it has so far failed to pass any legislation to that effect due to disagreements within the ruling coalition.
Poland's government came to power exactly one year ago on a pledge to end the country's near-total abortion ban.
But that promise remains unfilled, leaving many women angry and disillusioned, write @AlicjaPtak4 and @Chrisatepaauwe https://t.co/q9w8NqP4mI
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 13, 2024
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.
Source: Jacek Marczewski / Agencja Wyborca.pl
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.
