European Parliament strips Polish opposition MEPs of immunity

Oct 7, 2025 | Business, 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.

The European Parliament (EP) has voted to strip two MEPs from Poland’s opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party of legal immunity so that they can face criminal charges in their homeland.

One of them, Michał Dworczyk, is accused by prosecutors of various offences relating to the leaking of his private emails when he was a minister in the former PiS government. The other, Daniel Obajtek, is accused of crimes committed while he was CEO of Polish state energy firm Orlen.

Both politicians could face up to five years in prison if found guilty of the crimes. But they responded to today’s decision by proclaiming their innocence and accusing the EP of consenting to their “political repression” by the current Polish government, led by former European Council President Donald Tusk.

Over a year ago, in August 2024, Poland’s then justice minister and prosecutor general, Adam Bodnar, filed a request with the EP to lift Dworczyk’s immunit.

The case in question relates to a scandal that saw emails from Dworczyk’s private inbox hacked and leaked online. The emails came from a period when Dworczyk served as a government minister and chief of staff to PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

After investigating the incident, prosecutors announced that they wanted to charge Dworczyk with the crimes of failing to fulfil obligations as a state official, acting to the detriment of the public interest, and obstructing criminal proceedings.

They said that he had unlawfully “used an uncertified and unsecured private email box for conducting correspondence” that contained classified information. He also ordered the deletion of messages from his inbox, thereby potentially “helping the perpetrator of the hacker attack avoid criminal liability”.

 

In December 2024, Bodnar asked the EP to lift Obajtek’s immunity to face charges for allegedly using Orlen’s funds to serve his own private interests.

Separately, Bodnar also filed a request in July this year for Obajtek’s immunity to be lifted to face further charges of giving false testimony and violating Poland’s press freedom laws while he was CEO of Orlen. The EP has not yet voted on that second request.

Obajtek led the state-owned firm, which is Poland’s largest company, from 2018 until he was removed last year. During that time, he was accused of using Orlen’s resources to support the interests of the national-conservative PiS government and of causing the firm billions of zloty in losses.

Responding to today’s decisions by the EP, Dworczyk said that the body had “once again shown that you cannot expect fair treatment if you are not part of the European People’s Party” – referring to the largest group in the parliament, and to which Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) party belongs.

He said that the EP had “opened the path for Tusk’s gang to [carry out] further political repression” and called the accusations against him “absurd”.

Obajtek similarly accused the EP of “defending MEPs from left-wing parties” while “making it easier for Tusk’s team to pursue further political repression against me”. He said that this made a mockery of the EP’s claims to want to “defend democratic values, human rights, and freedoms”.

An MEP from Tusk’s party, however, welcomed the EP’s decision. “This is another symbolic day, showing that, if you break the law, you have to answer for it,” said Dariusz Joński, quoted by broadcaster RMF.

“PiS politicians thought that if they got into the European Parliament, their immunity would apply and no justice system would touch them,” he added.

When Tusk’s coalition replaced PiS in office in December 2023, one of its central pledges was to hold to account PiS officials for alleged abuses of power and other crimes during the former ruling party’s eight years in power.

In April this year, the EP also stripped two other former PiS government ministers, Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, of immunity to face prosecution in Poland. Poland’s own parliament has also stripped a number of PiS figures of immunity.


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: © European Union 2025 – Source : EP

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