On 23 February 2024, the Court of Appeal in Warsaw will announce the final judgment in the case of Maciej Wąsik, who has been sued by the Open Dialogue Foundation. Wirtualna Polska has read the statement of reasons for the judgement of the court of first instance in this case and learnt that the court battle has decidedly been lost by the Law and Justice (PiS) politician.
The final hearing in the case took place at the Court of Appeal on Monday. According to the Open Dialogue Foundation, Wąsik violated the Foundation’s personal rights. The former Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration (MSWiA) accused the organisation of, among other things, having connections with Russia, money laundering and hybrid activities. The Law and Justice (PiS) politician also accused Bartosz Kramek, the Chair of the Supervisory Board of the Foundation, of ‘public calling for bloodshed’. The politician failed to appear at the hearing on Monday.
“Wąsik was not able to prove his point in the court of first instance, and today the Court of Appeals decided to disregard motions filed during the appeal by the respondent, i.e. Wąsik,” reported the Open Dialogue Foundation on Monday. As Bartosz Kramek of the Foundation told Wirtualna Polska, motions for evidence were submitted by the Law and Justice (PiS) politician’s attorney at a previous hearing. “The court has now decided that they add nothing to the case,” said Kramek. A final verdict in the case is expected on 23 February 2024.
By way of reminder, the court of first instance ruled that Maciej Wąsik was to make a statement of apology for the statements that were detrimental to the Foundation. Wąsik was also ordered to pay PLN 10 000 each to Lyudmyla Kozlovska (the Founder and President of the Open Dialogue Foundation), Bartosz Kramek, and the Foundation. The judgment was passed on 29 June 2022 by the Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy) in Warsaw after three years of litigation.
“The Respondent Failed to Prove His Point”
As we read in the statement of reasons for the judgment, the testimony of the respondent [Maciej Wąsik – Ed’s Note] was incapable of proving that the Foundation or the Foundation’s donor company were involved in ‘money laundering’ or that the Foundation received money from arms manufacturing entities.
“The challenged statements of the respondent were not only critical of the claimants in connection with their activities, but also contained information (allegations) on the Foundation being funded by arms manufacturing companies in C. [Crimea – Ed’s Note] and by […] shell companies connected with the […] affair, about ‘money laundering”; or use of ‘dirty money’, the claimants’ connections with […] special services and conducting ‘hybrid operations’ aimed at destabilizing the situation in Poland. The slander of the respondents […] does not comprise evaluative statements, but assertions as to facts that are verifiable in terms of the category of truth or falseness,’” we read in the statement of reasons for the judgment written by the Judge Paweł Duda.
In his opinion, the allegations made by the respondent against the claimants are to be considered untrue, as the respondent failed to prove by means of evidence that those statements against the claimants are based on objective facts.
“Under these circumstances, the materials referred to by the respondent can hardly be considered a reliable source of information that could provide the grounds for the aforementioned, extremely serious allegations made by the respondent against the claimants; all the more so if one takes into account that the respondent spoke in the specified TV programmes as a representative of state authorities, that is, as a secretary of state at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister (KPRM) and then secretary of state at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration (MSWiA), and not as a publicist,” contended the Regional Court in Warsaw.
“His intention was to discredit the respondents”
The statement of reasons for the judgment also highlighted the political context which, according to the court, did not permit Maciej Wąsik to make false claims.
“Attention should also be paid to the context in which these false statements were made by the respondent against the claimants. It took place after the publication by B. K. [Bartosz Kramek – Ed’s Note] of a manifesto calling for social protests in defence of the rule of law and against changes to the judiciary planned by the political authorities, which a major part of society viewed as compromising the principle of independence of the judiciary from other authorities,” the Regional Court in Warsaw pointed out.
“The respondent was a politician affiliated with the political party that was in power in Poland, a member of executive and legislative bodies, and when making the statements cited above, he teamed up with media disseminating similar information against the claimants in favour of those in power at the time. The judge reasoned that this allows the thesis to be proposed that, by formulating the above-mentioned groundless allegations against the claimants, the respondent did not aim to ‘defend a socially legitimate interest’ in the form of the right to information, but aimed at discrediting the claimants in view of their critical arguments about those in power and allegations of violations of the rule of law by the ruling majority,” justified the judge.
From the very beginning, Wąsik sought for the lawsuit to be dismissed. He argued that, among other things, “the fragments of his statements referred to by the claimants had been detached from the context of the questions asked by the journalists and his whole statement, thus distorting their perception’. He also challenged the unlawfulness of his actions by asserting that the ‘claimants pursue active public and political activities, so his statements constitute a critical voice in a public debate”. However, the Regional Court in Warsaw did not uphold his arguments. On Wednesday, we tried unsuccessfully to contact the Law and Justice (PiS) politician.Maciej Wąsik has already been convicted once by the Regional Court in Warsaw, and that judgment is final. On 23 December, together with Mariusz Kaminski, he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for abuse of power in the so-called ‘land corruption scandal’ (afera gruntowa). From 9 to 23 January, he was held in a penitentiary. He was released following a second-time pardon decision by the Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Source: wp.pl
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