After losing in court, former deputy minister refuses to apologize to the Open Dialogue Foundation — bailiff seizes PLN 28,000

5 July 2024 | Author: tw/pap

The Open Dialogue Foundation has received over PLN 27,000 collected by the enforcement bailiff from Maciej Wąsik’s account, as reported by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). The money is the result of the enforcement of a court judgement that obliged the PiS politician to pay compensation for violating the personal rights of the Foundation and its leaders Lyudmyla Kozlovska and Bartosz Kramek.

“The money from Maciej Wąsik is in our Foundation’s account,” Bartosz Kramek from the ODF’s Supervisory Board told PAP. On Thursday, the organisation received a transfer of PLN 27,600 seized by an enforcement bailiff from the account of the PiS politician. This is the enforcement of a final court judgement in a trial for violation of personal rights, which was filed against Maciej Wąsik, a former deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration under the Law and Justice (PiS) government, by Bartosz Kramek, Lyudmyla Kozlovska and the organisation they founded, the Open Dialogue Foundation. The activists sued the politician following his statements in 2018–2019 about the Foundation’s activities. Wąsik publicly accused activists criticising the then government of having ties with Russia, of hybrid activities and of money laundering.

In February this year, the Court of Appeal upheld the first instance ruling, which upheld the organisation’s claims. Maciej Wąsik was to publish apologies within 14 days of the ruling became final (including on TVP Info, Telewizja wPolsce.pl, YouTube and the Telewizja Republika website) for spreading “harmful and untrue information” and to pay compensation – PLN 10,000 each to Bartosz Kramek, Lyudmyla Kozlovska and the Foundation itself, totalling PLN 30,000.

Maciej Wąsik did not comply with the judgement, so on 18 June the Foundation’s attorney Dawid Biernat applied to the enforcement bailiff to initiate and carry out debt enforcement proceedings against the politician. The enforcement was carried out by Aleksandra Rudzka-Natanek, an enforcement bailiff at the District Court for Warsaw-Żoliborz. At the end of June, she seized over PLN 50,000 from Maciej Wąsik’s bank account, of which PLN 30,000 is the value of the debt, i.e. compensation, more than PLN 11,000 is interest, more than PLN 7,600 is legal costs, PLN 900 is the cost of representation in enforcement proceedings and under PLN 5,000 is the cost of enforcement. The amount was transferred to the Foundation’s account after deducting the costs of enforcement proceedings and legal costs. Maciej Wąsik has not apologised yet.

As a next step, the Foundation intends to enforce Maciej Wąsik’s obligation to fulfil the rest of the judgement, i.e. to publish an apology in the media outlets indicated by the court. The PiS politician had until 8 March this year to apologise to activists. “Maciej Wąsik did not do so, so the application for court enforcement is ready and will be filed with the court,” Bartosz Kramek told PAP. In his application, the Foundation’s attorney Dawid Biernat requests that the politician publish an apology within three days of the court’s judgement becoming final, otherwise, he will be fined PLN 5,000 for each day of delay.

In the reasoning for the amount of the penalty, the attorney explained that it results from the nature of the violated personal rights of the plaintiffs, the duration of the violation and the wide dissemination of Wąsik’s statements, facilitated by his public role. “Secondly, it must be taken into account that Maciej Wąsik is a politician known throughout Poland, currently a Member of the European Parliament, and enforcing the law against such a person is particularly important from the point of view of society for the sake of the basic principle of equality before the law,” the appeal stated. “In civil and criminal proceedings, we will also seek that justice be faced by Mariusz Kamiński and other members of the previous government responsible for political persecution. These were directed against many inconvenient activists, judges, rebellious heads of services and state-owned companies, and entrepreneurs – starting with the fabrication of evidence against my wife by the Internal Security Agency (ABW) and ending with malicious prosecution on the part of Ziobro’s prosecutor’s office. Absurd charges were brought against, among others, former deputy head of the Financial Supervision Commission (KNF) Wojciech Kwaśniak, former head of the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) Paweł Wojtunik, former president of the Polish State Railways (PKP) Jakub Karnowski, LGBT+ activists and leaders of the Polish Women’s Strike, while the prosecutor’s office and services systematically persecuted judge Waldemar Żurek and independent prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek. The previous government also persecuted entrepreneurs – Przemysław Krych, Piotr Osiecki, Maciej Bodnar, Stanisław Han, Tomasz Misiak and Maciej Witucki, who are still waiting for justice,” added Kramek.

In his opinion, “post-Soviet Russian practices were used: surveillance, threats, slander, pressure on lawyers and journalists, extortion, and detention prolonged to exert pressure on the detainee”. “When will Zbigniew Ziobro, Bogdan Święczkowski and their prosecutors, as well as former deputy head of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau Grzegorz Ocieczek, be in the dock?” he asked.

The Open Dialogue Foundation and its management have brought around 20 lawsuits against politicians and journalists for attacks on the Foundation during the PiS government. They concern, among others, Witold Waszczykowski, Joachim Brudziński, Patryk Jaki, Krystyna Pawłowicz, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Ryszard Czarnecki, Szymon Szynkowski, Dominik Tarczyński, Tomasz Sakiewicz, Witold Gadowski and TVP, Polish Radio and Fratria – the publisher of the PiS related website wPolityce.pl and the weekly Sieci. In the ongoing proceedings, the activists demand almost PLN 1.7 million. So far, the Foundation has won lawsuits, non-final as yet, against TVP, Joachim Brudziński, Patryk Jaki, Dominik Tarczyński, and three times against Tomasz Sakiewicz. In May this year, the court ruled that the judgment in the case against Witold Waszczykowski was final. The Foundation’s lawsuit against Maciej Wąsik is the first to go to enforcement proceedings.

Source: wirtualnemedia.pl

Read also:

Defamation case win against Wąsik. Court hands down final judgement (February 23, 2024)

In other media: