Bartosz Kramek and Lyudmyla Kozlovska have won their lawsuit against Joachim Brudziński for violation of personal rights. The current head of the Law and Justice (PiS) election campaign is to apologise to them for 60 days on Twitter and pay PLN 10,000 compensation each. The verdict is not final. This is the fifth case these activists have won in the courts against influential PiS members.
On the evening of 22 April 2019, on the second day of Easter, Joachim Brudziński tweeted “Hi, defenders of the “Euro-Kazakh” crooks famous for ‘shutting down the government’. Do you know that you are поле́зный идиот [i.e. useful idiots]? Do you realise that December’s miraculous resurrection of Mr. D. and the Rossmann candles were funded with laundered money? I don’t think that Lusia and her tolerant husband are likely to get the Nobel Prize,”
Although the tweet was unclear to many — as evidenced by the many comments underneath it — who these “crooks” are supposed to be was obvious. The Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF) had already been the object of the Law and Justice’s (PiS) attention for two years. Bartosz Kramek published an appeal in 2017 (at the time of the PiS attack on the courts), “Let the state come to a stop: let’s shut down the government”.
In turn, Lyudmyla Kozlovska — here as ‘Lusia’, President of the ODF and privately Kramek’s wife — was involved in supporting the democratic opposition in Kazakhstan and Europe, among other things. A year earlier, as a Ukrainian citizen, she had been expelled from the Schengen area by special services controlled by the Law and Justice party.
In October 2019, the activist couple filed a personal rights lawsuit. It ran to 39 pages.
“Holy shit! Is there a translator in the room? I would like to understand the minister’s gibberish”
Due to the unclear parts of Brudziński’s message, many of those reading it believed that he had written it on the evening of Dyngus Day (Easter Monday) while already under the influence of alcohol.
“The April miracle of Mr Brudziński’s resurrection tomorrow morning may be slightly painful. Too many fluids, Mr Minister. You might want to buy some boosters at Rossmann,” quipped well-known twitterer Betty White.
Brudziński’s entry went down in history as a “drunk tweet”.
But — most interestingly — the MEP’s defence lawyer Adrian Salus (he also defends Jarosław Kaczyński and sits on the supervisory boards of several companies) made it one of his… lines of defence. He explained to the court that people on TT judged his client’s post as “ministerial gibberish” and it was unclear who or what he was writing about.
Defence lawyer Salus quoted the following comments, “I don’t know what the hell he’s writing about”, “It’s hard to understand, so please explain in Polish”, “But what’s the point?”. “Holy shit! Is there a translator in the room? I would like to understand the minister’s gibberish”.
He also explained, “From this entry, it is impossible to clearly identify the addressees of this statement”. Because the defendant did not write who specifically — by name — the entry refers to. The lawyer invoked the so-called “clean hands” doctrine. That is to say, one cannot be offended by the use of methods that oneuses against others. And he gave the example of Kramek’s article in Gazeta Wyborcza, in which he wrote about the “embarrassing party”, “President Kaczyński’s questionable sanity”, “Fu** PiS… and don’t be afraid”, “John Paul II accused of covering up paedophile scandals” (sic!), “Kaczelnik”, “Jarek — the coward”….
The lawyer then again quoted dozens of statements by Bartosz Kramek to justify Brudziński’s entry.
He did not quote an article in the strongly pro-government internet portal wPolityce.pl. And there it was unequivocally stated that Brudziński’s message was actually a commentary on a publication in The Sunday Times about the ODF leadership.
The MEP’s defence counsel also argued that “a crook” (originally “cwaniaczek”) was not an offensive term, because according to the dictionary, from this word one can arrive at the word….”Jesuit” (originally “jezuita”). In addition, it was the MEP who was subjected to attack, after his post, and not the activist couple.
Throughout the trial, Joachim Brudziński did not attend the hearing even once. “The Respondent has consistently adhered to his decision not to appear at the hearings,” commented the judge in the end.
Brudziński is obliged to apologise for 60 days
On 26 July, the court of first instance found that Brudziński’s entry had put the Foundation and its management at risk of loss of confidence not only in Poland, but also internationally. There had therefore been a violation of personal rights.
In particular, regarding the suggestion that the Foundation and its management benefit from “laundered, dirty money”. Neither the so-called Moldovan report — which turned out to be based on fabricated material — nor the article in The Sunday Times, which was based on this material, explained the defendant.
What mattered to the court was that the offending message was made by a person holding a high position in the state.
By the court’s decision, Joachim Brudziński is to keep his statement with an apology to ODF, Kozlovska and Kramek published on his TT profile for 60 days. On top of that, he is to pay compensation of PLN 10,000 each to ODF, its President and Kramek. Plus statutory interest and court fees.
***
ODF has already won five lawsuits against PiS people/institutions. A dozen more are waiting “in the queue”.
Joachim Brudziński is the fifth PiS man to lose a civil lawsuit against the Open Dialogue Foundation and/or its leadership in recent years.
“By now, they have had to brush off their lies and manipulations:
– Tomasz Sakiewicz,
– Dominik Tarczyński,
– Maciej Wąsik,
– TVP”
– lists them ODF on their TT profile.
Source: OKO.press