Cezary Szymanek: Public Prosecutor and Judge in Service of Party: How PiS Breaks Businessmen

11 October 2023 | Author: Cezary Szymanek

Not enough trees have been felled over the last eight years in the country to print reports on the scandals and wrongdoings not addressed by the Law and Justice (PiS) government.

This is what it looks like: a raid by special service officers at 6.00 in the morning, a house search, handcuffs, and then detention followed by many hours of interrogation accompanied by the nagging anxiety as to whether the motion for pre-trial detention will be passed to a judge appointed by Zbigniew Ziobro. The most browbeaten businessman was subjected to pre-trial “extractive detention” three times in the same case and, in the meantime, received offers from those in the power camp that they would take over his company for next to nothing, which was alleged would end his problems. The 130 page-long report by the Open Dialogue Foundation and the “Themis” Association of Judges (Stowarzyszenie Sędziów „Themis”) describes many cases of people who endured first-hand experiences of the abuse of power by the public prosecution office under the leadership of the Minister of Justice. They also became the object of propaganda lynchings in the government media, such of Polish Television (TVP).

During the same period, i.e. since 2015, the following has also taken place: the purchase of respirators from an arms dealer, the poisoning of the Oder River, the recalled elections (the so-called “envelope elections”), the construction and demolition of two towers in Ostrołęka, party campaigns financed from the budgets of companies owned by the State Treasury, the purchase of fire engines funded from the Justice Fund (Fundusz Sprawiedliwości), the felling of Polish forests, the trading in Polish visas by officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the explosion of a grenade launcher at the Polish Police Headquarters, the distribution of villas by the Ministry of National Education (MEN), illegal imports of technical grain from Ukraine, the GetBack affair, the takeover bid for a private bank for PLN 1 supported by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF), the extortion of grants from the National Centre for Research and Development (Narodowe Centrum Badań i Rozwoju), the leak of emails from a private mailbox of Minister Michał Dworczyk (who had used it for official purposes), the wiretapping affair (i.e., the abuse of the Pegasus system against the opposition), flying home the Sejm Speaker Marek Kuchciński and his family, the purchase of masks without certificates in China, the adoption of the state budget in the Sejm’s Columned Hall barricaded by MPs of the United Right (Zjednoczona Prawica), the disclosure of confidential patient information by the Minister of Health, the positions in companies owned by the State Treasury being awarded in return for contributions to the Law and Justice (PiS) fund, the push-backs along the border with Belarus, the unclear financing of Cooperative Savings and Loans Unions (SKOK), and the collapse of the Stud Farm in Janów Podlaski.

The public prosecutor’s office has paid less attention (if any at all) to these cases than to fighting political opponents.

Source: rp.pl

Read also:

ODF and Themis Report on the Activities of the Polish Public Prosecutor’s Office under the Rule of Zbigniew Ziobro (October 7, 2023)

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