On 5 April 2024, the Regional Court in Warsaw ruled that Patryk Jaki, a Member of the European Parliament representing the Law and Justice (PiS) party, violated the personal rights of the Open Dialogue Foundation. Now Jaki must apologise for calling us “Russian agents” and accusing us of “lobbying for Kremlin oligarchs” in 2019.
The apologises ordered shall read as follows:
“I, Patryk Jaki, do hereby apologise to the Open Dialogue Foundation domiciled in Warsaw (KRS: 0000353754) for violating its personal rights, including its good name and reputation by disseminating harmful, misleading and false information published by me on my profile on the social networking site www.facebook.pl. I do confirm that my publication contained false information, in particular regarding the ODF’s sources of funding and its ties with Russia, thus putting the Open Dialogue Foundation in an unfavourable light and exposing it to moral and financial losses. The statement appears as a result of a lost lawsuit.”
Let us recall that on 22 April 2019, Patryk Jaki, in the context of the then-ongoing European Parliament election campaign, published a post on his Facebook profile concerning ODF, which included the following statements:
- “Sunday Times: The Open Dialogue Foundation received £1.5 million from shell companies. In return, it was supposed to lobby on behalf of Kremlin oligarchs.”
- “And as if that wasn’t enough, these Russian agents were most strongly defended by Onet, TVN and Wyborcza.”
- “This foundation also described in its manual ‘How to overthrow the authorities in Poland’ that teachers should be used for this purpose (…).”
- ’It’s time to open your eyes. This is a fight for Poland.”
In its justification of today’s first instance ruling, the court pointed to the lack of any evidence supporting the claims made by the leader of Sovereign Poland. As a politician, he must have been aware how deeply unjust and harmful it is to accuse a Foundation founded by a Ukrainian national defending human rights in post-Soviet countries of having ties with Russia.
The court also dismissed Jaki’s claims that he was merely referring to a contentious article in The Sunday Times, ruling that the so-called “right to quote” does not absolve one of liability for infringing upon personal rights. The article in question relied heavily on the so-called Moldovan report, which was subsequently annulled by Moldovan authorities following the 2019 collapse of Vlad Plahotniuc’s kleptocratic regime. The ruling highlighted the false nature of the allegations, the unreliability of the sources, and the apparent intent to defame our organization.
Patryk Jaki used his slanderous statements to attack, inter alia, the former MEP Róża Thun, with whom we have been cooperating for several years to promote the rule of law in Poland and human rights around the world.
So far, the Foundation has won lawsuits against, among others, Joachim Brudziński, Dominik Tarczyński, Witold Waszczykowski, and most recently, Maciej Wąsik. In addition to politicians associated with the United Right, several PiS propaganda outlets — including Telewizja Polska, Polskie Radio and Gazeta Polska — also lost lawsuits over violations of our personal rights.
In other media:
Read also:
- Parliament of Moldova annulled the slanderous report (9 February 2023)
- Moldova has closed the political investigation against Lyudmyla Kozlovska (14 May 2020)
- Statement on the defamatory article in the Sunday Times about the Open Dialogue Foundation (29 May 2029)
- Moldova: Political persecution of critics and opponents of authorities (10 May 2019)
- 20 lawsuits filed against Law and Justice. Interim measure against TVP (11 October 2019)
Read about other lawsuits:
- Polish Radio loses to Open Dialogue Foundation in court (21 February 2025)
- Dominik Tarczyński’s late-night apology. MEP loses lawsuit against Open Dialogue Foundation (8 January 2025)
- Witold Waszczykowski’s debacle. Court orders apologies (7 June 2024)
- Defamation case win against Wąsik. Court hands down final judgement (23 February 2024)
- Joachim Brudziński loses libel case over ‘money laundering’ claim (3 August 2023)
- Polish state broadcaster TVP forced to apologise and pay damages following court verdict (4 July 2023)
- Nazi “Gazeta Polska“ cover: Appeal court orders Tomasz Sakiewicz apology (23 August 2022)
- Maciej Wąsik loses libel case over Foundation’s ‘ties to Russia’ claim. Court ordered apologies (5 August 2022)
Photo at the top: Andrzej Iwańczuk/Reporter/East News
