The leader of the Law and Justice Party’s list for the European Parliament from Łódź and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Witold Waszczykowski, who publicly accused the Foundation of anti-Polish activities and called it an “agent of Russian influence”, has lost a lawsuit against us for violation of personal rights. The judgement is final. The court ordered him to publish an apology on TVP Info and Telewizja Republika. Failure to comply with the judgement resulted in an enforcement order enabling the execution of the court decision with the involvement of a bailiff.
On 28 May 2024, the Regional Court in Warsaw – due to the lack of appeals from the parties – declared the judgement of 20 February final with an enforcement order. In its reasoning the court stressed that “the defence of the interests of the Polish state cannot be carried out by infringing on the personal interests of others, this is not required for the defence of the interests of the state, for this, there are procedures provided for by law, not media interviews”. The court additionally noted that Waszczykowski did not possess any information suggesting that the Foundation or its management had engaged in any activities that would justify such a negative assessment. ”It has not been established that the plaintiffs violated the law or attempted to commit any criminal act against the Polish state.”
Apart from formulating a response to the lawsuit, in which he explained that he had joined the fight “out of duty”, Waszczykowski let the process run its course: he did not attend hearings despite being summoned, nor did he submit any evidence requests. Beyond the courtroom, whenever the facts and subsequent events were not to his liking, he preferred to ignore them.
Let us remind you that we filed a lawsuit against the former head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2019 for his statements about the Open Dialogue Foundation, its President Lyudmyla Kozlovska and the Chair of the Foundation’s Supervisory Board Bartosz Kramek. The then-minister accused us, among other things, of anti-state activities (against Poland and even other democratic countries), labelled our organisation as an “agent of Russian influence”and sided with the actions of the Internal Security Agency (ABW) against us.
In 2017, at the request of former special services coordinator Mariusz Kamiński, Waszczykowski submitted a motion to suspend the Foundation’s Management Board and to appoint a compulsory administrator and requested a “fiscal inspection” to be carried out. The court lawfully denied the petition to appoint a compulsory administrator in 2017 based on constitutional liberties and the lack of any legal violation by our board members.
The fiscal procedures are still pending and have been transferred to the Customs and Tax Office in Łódź, which was headed by the minister’s brother, Tomasz Waszczykowski.
We were represented in the court proceedings by the best experts in the defence of personal rights in Poland – attorneys Maciej Lach and Dawid Biernat from the Lach Janas Biernat law firm. We are deeply grateful for their efficient work.
So far, we have won lawsuits against, among others, Joachim Brudziński, Dominik Tarczyński, and Maciej Wąsik, twice against Tomasz Sakiewicz1,2 and the Polish state broadcaster TVP.
Read also:
- 20 lawsuits filed against Law and Justice. Interim measure against TVP (October 11, 2019)
- Minister Waszczykowski’s brother worked in the office auditing Kozlovska’s Foundation (June 26, 2019)
- The court refused the MFA to suspend the Management Board of the Open Dialogue Foundation (December 19, 2017)
- Тhe Open Dialogue Foundation may be assigned a compulsory administrator (August 23, 2017)
- Seven inspectors representing the Customs and Tax Office in Łódź visited the Open Dialogue Foundation (August 8, 2017)
In the media:
- Gazeta Wyborcza: Witold Waszczykowski court defeat. Apology to Open Dialogue Foundation ordered (June 12, 2024)
Cover photo: Shutterstock
