The Management Board of the Open Dialogue Foundation will not be suspended – on 7 December, the District Court in Warsaw dismissed the motion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to put the Foundation under administrative receivership and to suspend its current Management Board. According to the court, the MFA did not complete the required formalities.
Bartosz Kramek, Head of the Foundation Board of the Open Dialogue Foundation, comments briefly on the court decision. – This is the way it should be. The role of independent courts is to guard civil rights. The case has already been described by the Polish media, including its right-wing outlets (wPolityce, Do Rzeczy).
The District Court for the Capital City of Warsaw decided to reject the motion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the court’s opinion, the ministry failed to comply with the entire procedure, i.e. to call upon the Foundation (in an appropriate formal manner) to cease their infringements. The MFA announced that they will appeal against the court’s decision.
To recall, in August 2017, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed a motion to the District Court for the capital city of Warsaw to put the Open Dialogue Foundation under administrative receivership and to suspend its current Management Board due to the failure to comply with the order to immediately remove the “information calling for illegal action” from the Internet. This refers to the statement of the Foundation and the shared Bartosz Kramek‘s study entitled ‘Let the state stop: let us deactivate the government!,’ which put forward 16 ideas for a peaceful civil protest against judicial reforms. Despite the constant emphasising that this was only a collection of postulates and inspirations for peaceful activities, the publication has drawn attention of the government. As a result, the Foundation and its individual members have become a target of attacks by pro-government circles and an object of a false information campaign.
Read:
- Information on unprecedented attacks on civil society organisations in Poland
- Unprecedented attacks on the Open Dialogue Foundation in Poland
- A smear campaign against the Open Dialogue Foundation has reached the walls of the European Parliament
- “We see the Ministry’s call as censorship” – Bartosz Kramek comments on the Ministry’s letter
- Onet: The Government does not want an Open Dialog
- Seven inspectors representing the Customs and Tax Office in Łódź visited the Open Dialogue Foundation
- Onet publishes a release about the tax and duty inspection at the ODF
- Wirtualna Polska about the media and government’s smear campaign against ODF. Kramek: “This is a politically motivated beginning of repressions”
- “We have not called for illegal actions” – Bartosz Kramek replies to MFA’s letter
See also:
- Statement of the Open Dialogue Foundation of 21 July 2017 on the dismantling of the rule of law in Poland
- The statement of the decision of the President of the Republic of Poland of 24 July 2017 regarding the judiciary reform
- Attack against the rule of law and civil society in Poland – a debate during the OSCE HDIM 2017 conference
