Maciej Wąsik to apologise. Loses lawsuit against activists

23 February 2024 | Author: Krzysztof Boczek

For violating personal rights in his statements about Lyudmyla Kozlovska, Bartosz Kramek and their Open Dialogue Foundation, the former deputy coordinator of the special services must apologise to the victims and pay PLN 10,000 to each, plus interest, the court has ruled.

THE OPEN DIALOGUE FOUNDATION (ODF) and the couple who run it – Bartosz Kramek and Lyudmyla Kozlovska – became public enemies in the Law and Justice (PiS) state upon the publication of Kramek’s famous appeal entitled “Let the State Come to a Stop: Let’s Shut Down the Government!” in mid-2017 during protests against the politicisation of the courts.

A number of inspections, the ABW, the prosecutor’s office were sent to the organisation, and a year later Kozlovska, a Ukrainian citizen, was expelled from the country. The smear campaign against ODF in the public media involved members of the Law and Justice party. Maciej Wąsik made five statements in pro-government media – TVP Info, wPolityce, TV Republika – accusing the Foundation and its management of, among other things, having ties with Russia, lack of transparency in funding, money laundering, and hybrid activities aimed at destabilising the Polish state or harming the interests of the state. Wąsik also claimed that Bartosz Kramek had called for bloodshed in his appeal. Shortly after these words, the couple filed a lawsuit against Minister Wąsik in autumn 2019.

“I don’t remember”, “general knowledge”, “I would like to correct it”

During the trial, the minister was unable to substantiate his allegations. He hid behind forgetfulness, claimed his “opinions” to be “general knowledge”, and cited publications that were either written later, whose credibility had been disproved, or written earlier, which were non-credible. He said: “I didn’t know”, “I don’t remember”, “I would like to correct it”, “it may be an inaccurate term”. He also invoked his knowledge as deputy coordinator of the special services.

The court found no evidence to corroborate Wąsik’s words upon which the case was based.

It therefore concluded that the minister had violated the personal rights of Kramek and Kozlovska. In June 2022, the judgment was passed in the first instance. Wąsik was ordered to pay PLN 10,000 compensation each to the victims plus statutory interest and to keep an apology posted for a week, at his own expense, on the websites of media outlets that had reported the untrue information: TVP Info, TV Republika and wPolsce.

The apology is to read (for TVP Info):

“I, Maciej Wąsik, do hereby apologise to Lyudmyla Kozlovska and Bartosz Kramek for the infringement of their personal rights, such as their good name, and to the Open Dialogue Foundation for the infringement of its moral rights, such as its reputation and good name, through the dissemination of damaging and false information on TVP Info. I do confirm that my statement contained false information regarding the ODF’s sources of funding, its ties with Russia, and its call for coups and bloodshed in Poland, thus putting Lyudmyla Kozlovska, Bartosz Kramek, in an unfavourable light. The statement appears as a result of a lost lawsuit.”

Similar ones are also due to be published for a week on the websites of TV Republika and wPolsce.pl

Crushing justification for the dismissal of the appeal

Wąsik filed an appeal. Today, a final judgment was handed down in the Court of Appeal in Warsaw. The court dismissed the appeal in its entirety and upheld the findings and decisions of the court of first instance. That is, the publication of an apology, PLN 10,000 compensation + statutory interest each, and reimbursement of legal costs, including an additional PLN 1080 for the appeal.

Judge Elżbieta Wiatrzyk-Wojciechowska pointed out that:

it was not demonstrated that the Regional Court had assessed the evidence in the case “arbitrarily”;
the appellant did not state in the appeal what part of Wąsik’s testimony was omitted by the court of first instance;
the defendant’s statements, which took place in 2019 and cannot be supported by the 2021 documents or the allegations subsequently made against Bartosz Kramek;
the defendant submitted a number of articles, but “it is impossible to assume that these were reliable sources of information”.

Maciej Wąsik tried to defend himself in his appeal stating that he had no influence over his statements. The court rejected this argument because Wąsik had made the statements himself on TV stations, mainly live.

Wąsik argued in his appeal that he disseminated the statements causing the trial because it was “in the public interest”. The court overturned this argument as well, because it was not confirmed that the activists had committed the alleged actions.

The former deputy minister also attempted to challenge the amount of compensation ordered and the costs of the apology. He claimed that they were too high in his financial situation. “The defendant’s incriminated statements occurred each time in a prominent time slot and channel and reached an unlimited audience. In each of them he was introduced as a government official, which reinforced the message,” explained Judge Wiatrzyk-Wojciechowska. The infringement of personal rights therefore caused great damage. The judge also added that the defendant held high state positions, was also a member of parliament and had income from this – his financial state could not be an argument here. Furthermore, he could have been preparing for an unfavourable decision and the implementation of the judgment since June 2022, when the judgment at first instance was handed down. “For all these reasons, the amount ordered is neither excessive nor grossly high,” the court emphasised.

Finally, in his appeal, Wąsik referred to two posts by Bartosz Kramek, posted two years after the lawsuit was filed, which allegedly violated his personal rights. The court explained that “mutual violations of personal rights do not cancel each other out”.

Judge Wiatrzyk-Wojciechowska twice emphasised that the court of first instance had correctly assessed the evidence.

Will there be further lawsuits?

Bartosz Kramek, commenting on the judgment, emphasises: “Wąsik used defamation in the political interest of his own party”. The activist suggests further action by ODF against Wąsik. “The power is gone, there is no [expression of] shame, and the responsibility remains. We are consistent, we follow through. This is only the beginning – our litigation opponent is responsible for numerous abuses,” Kramek writes in a statement to OKO.press. He lists what the former deputy minister is to be held responsible for: attacks on people defending the rule of law and human rights, illegal surveillance, inhumane treatment of refugees on the border with Belarus. “It is their blood he has on his hands. And I hope that also for this he will soon be held criminally responsible, together with Kaminski and the whole shebang,” writes Kramek.

We were unable to contact Maciej Wąsik for a comment. On the X platform (formerly Twitter), where the former deputy minister is very active, he has so far made no comment on the judgment.

20 lawsuits – none lost

This is yet another lawsuit won by ODF and its leadership against PiS politicians or their propagandists. The Foundation has brought as many as 20 civil lawsuits in 2019 against Law and Justice politicians and government-controlled institutions that, like Maciej Wąsik, have made analogous allegations against activists. So far, ODF has won six lawsuits and lost none:

twice against Tomasz Sakiewicz (Gazeta Polska);
against Joachim Brudziński;
against Dominik Tarczyński;
against TVP: an apology described on dozens of pages;
and now a second time against Maciej Wąsik.

Law and Justice (PiS) MP Joanna Lichocka also lost the trial on her complaint. It was about 173 billboards with a photo of the MP with her famous middle-finger gesture. For these billboards, activists organised a fundraising campaign.

The ODF also has cases pending against, among others, Krystyna Pawłowicz, Patryk Jaki, Ryszard Czarnecki, Witold Waszczykowski and Jacek Karnowski (wPolityce portal).

Lyudmyla Kozlovska is still not allowed to enter Poland, despite having won five cases in the courts regarding her expulsion from the country. After almost six years of court battles, in November 2023, the court ordered the Office for Foreigners to remove Kozlovska from the list of people who cannot be admitted to Poland. “We still haven’t received anything in writing on this matter. We are waiting,” says Marcin Mycielski, ODF’s vice-president.

Source: oko.press

Read also:

Maciej Wąsik loses libel case over Foundation’s ‘ties to Russia’ claim. Court ordered apologies (August 5, 2022)

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