Polish justice minister orders criminal investigation into presidential advisors over judge dispute

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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 justice minister has ordered prosecutors to launch a criminal investigation into advisors to opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki for their role in Nawrocki’s decision not to swear in constitutional court judges appointed by parliament.

The individuals, who have not been named, are suspected of aiding and abetting the president in the crime of abuse of power. However, a senior presidential aide has called the accusations “ridiculous”.

Last month, the government’s majority in the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, chose six new judges to fill empty seats on the Constitutional Tribunal (TK), a body that is at the heart of Poland’s rule-of-law crisis.

However, under the law, new TK judges can only take up their position after “taking an oath before the president”. Yet Nawrocki, instead of swearing in all six judges, only invited two of them to the presidential palace, leaving the other four in limbo.

The government and many legal experts have argued that those actions were unlawful: the president has no role in choosing TK judges; therefore, if he accepted the validity of two of the six – all of whom were elected by parliament at the same time – he should also have sworn in the other four as well.

At a press conference on Monday afternoon, Waldemar Żurek, who serves as both justice minister and prosecutor general, announced that he had instructed prosecutors to investigate those who had advised Nawrocki not to swear in all six judges.

“The president…[acted] outside the law and in violation of the constitution,” said Żurek, quoted by news website 300Polityka. Nawrocki has no right to “choose who he likes best” out of the judges elected by parliament, he added.

Later on Monday, the National Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that Żurek had ordered an investigation into the offence of aiding and abetting the commission of a crime, which in this case was alleged abuse of power by the president (which carries a potential prison sentence of up to three years).

Żurek noted that, as president, Nawrocki himself does not fall under the normal criminal process. Instead, if he were to be investigated, it would be under the purview of the State Tribunal, a special judicial body empowered to punish the highest officials of the state.

Neither Żurek nor the prosecutor’s office named any specific individuals who are to be investigated. The justice minister said only that he “hopes we will identify those who helped the president in this behaviour”, some of whom have already “publicly revealed themselves”.

The prosecutor’s office said that those who had advised the president not to swear in all the judges had potentially acted to the “detriment of the private interest of judges…and the public interest in the proper functioning of the judiciary, and thus democracy in Poland”.

“Upon their election by the Sejm, these persons acquired the status of judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, and any actions aimed at delaying or preventing the taking of the oath and, as a result, the taking of judicial actions should be considered legally inadmissible,” they added.

Neither the president nor his chancellery have addressed the specific accusations against them so far. However, the head of Nawrocki’s International Policy Office, Marcin Przydacz, did make two social media posts in response.

“Polish Minister of Justice (appointed by D. Tusk) has just indicated that he has instructed the prosecutor’s office to launch an investigation into individuals who have recently actively ADVISED the President of the Republic of Poland,” he wrote in English. “Are these the standards of liberal democracy, Mr. Prime Minister Donald Tusk?”

In the other post, written in Polish, Przydacz declared: “The worst moment for any politician is when he becomes ridiculous. Mr. Żurek crossed those boundaries a long time ago.”

Meanwhile, opposition politician and former deputy justice minister Michał Woś – who is himself facing trial for abuse of power and other alleged crimes – told the Do Rzeczy news magazine that it is a “scandal” that Żurek is seeking charges against advisors for simply doing their job by advising the president.

Last week, the four judges whom Nawrocki had failed to swear in decided to organise their own ceremony in the Sejm, where they took their oath of office. They invited the president to attend, but he refused to do so and has described the entire process as unlawful.

Nawrocki’s position was endorsed by the chief justice of the Constitutional Tribunal, Bogdan Święczkowski, who is also aligned with the right-wing opposition.

While he has accepted the two judges sworn in by Nawrocki, he says he will not recognise the remaining four until they take their oath before the president.

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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: Mikołaj Bukaj/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.