A public appeal to the Ministry of Justice to review “politically motivated prosecutions from 2015 to 2023”, with dozens of signatories, including former President Lech Wałęsa, was published on Monday on the website of the Open Dialogue Foundation.
“As citizens of the Republic of Poland, supporting the victims of the arbitrary and highly questionable actions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office led by your predecessor, Zbigniew Ziobro, we would like to address you with concern and alarm regarding the still ongoing political investigations initiated between 2015 and 2023, under the United Right government,” reads the appeal addressed to the Minister of Justice, Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar.
Its authors called for, among other things, the appointment of “a team of prosecutors to analyse the rationale for a continuation of investigations initiated and conducted between 2015 and 2023 in which there is a highly justified suspicion that the Prosecutor’s Office was used as a political tool to intimidate, harass and falsely accuse a number of people of offenses that were either not committed or highly questionable, only because, for various reasons, they had become inconvenient to the previous ruling camp”.
According to the signatories of the appeal, such a decision would be a crucial step towards restoring public confidence in the Polish Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary, as well as “a tangible confirmation of the will to reform it in order to restore apoliticality, respect for constitutional rights of the individual and the principle of equality before the law.”
Among those who have signed the appeal are the former President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Wałęsa, and more than a dozen foundations, associations and NGOs — including the Open Dialogue Foundation, Citizens of Poland, the All-Poland Women’s Strike, and the Border Group or the Themis Judges Association; other signatories include Leszek Balcerowicz, Agnieszka Holland, Zbigniew Hołdys, Tomasz Lis, Janina Ochojska and Andrzej Zoll.
Among the “malicious investigations”, the authors of the appeal listed those contained in the report of the Open Dialogue Foundation, concerning, among others, activists of the All-Poland Women’s Strike, 13 pro-refugee activists from the Polish–Belarusian border, judges, prosecutors and other members of the Lex Super Omnia Prosecutors Association, opposition politicians (during the rule of the Law and Justice party), former heads and officers of the special services, entrepreneurs and managers holding supervisory and managerial positions in state-owned companies and central state administration bodies, journalists and writers, as well as private individuals.
The signatories to the appeal stressed that “politicisation of the Prosecutor’s Office, translating into harm and damage to persons who have become a target of or been inconvenient to the previous government”, has been identified by, among others, the Venice Commission, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. A detailed report on the topic was also issued by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.
Source: bankier.pl
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In other media:
- Prawo.pl: More than 30 organisations appeal to review and close political investigations (February 13, 2024)
- Onet: Public appeal to Adam Bodnar. “Political investigations must be closed”(February 12, 2024)
- Gazeta Wyborcza: Public appeal to Adam Bodnar to end political investigations and rehabilitate the victims (February 12, 2024)
- OKO.press: NGOs: Bodnar, look into political prosecutions (February 12, 2024)
- Rzeczpospolita: End political investigations. Public appeal to the Prosecutor General (February 12, 2024)
- Gazeta Wyborcza: Hold PiS to account for persecuting defenders of rule of law. Inquiry needed (February 2, 2024)
