A complaint was filed with the court on Thursday about the long duration of the proceedings regarding President Andrzej Zybertowicz’s adviser, the professor’s lawyers said. It concerns the court’s delay in preparing a written statement of reasons for the non-final judgment in the process for its declaration on the Round Table.
It is Zybertowicz’s statement four years ago that there was a “deep truth” in Andrzej Gwiazda’s remark that during the Round Table “power shared power with its own agents.”
In this case, the court closed the trial on September 13, 2022, when it heard closing arguments. The court delayed the announcement of the verdict for a month and issued the verdict on October 13, 2022. Only on February 23 – the day we filed the complaint with the court – was the reasoning of the verdict made available on the court portal
Lawyer Monika Brzozowska-Pasieka told PAP.
Waiting for admission of appeal
As she added, an appeal is now being prepared after the written justification of the judgment has been made available.
For almost five months we did not know the important reasons for the decision. We want the appeals court to look into what caused such a long delay in the work of the court, because it was not a multithreaded criminal case or a complicated economic case, but a simple case of personal rights violation, which amounted to the answer to the question whether in a free Poland you can quote the words of Andrew Star
– pointed out lawyer Brzozowska-Pasieka.
Process from the application of 40 reasons
Last October, the District Court in Warsaw ordered Zybertowicz to apologize in a personal rights violation lawsuit brought against him by nearly 40 plaintiffs – participants in the 1989 roundtable talks on the side of the Opposition and Solidarity and their families members.
According to the Code of Civil Procedure, a period of 14 days is generally provided for the preparation of a written statement of reasons, but the presiding judge may extend this period.
In this case, the president of the court has already given permission twice. The latest authorization provided a deadline for preparing the grounds for the judgment on January 20 this year.
Zybertowicz’s lawyers have informed.
Words of “deep truth” about the Round Table
The trial involved rulings made on February 5, 2019, during the Round Table’s 30th anniversary celebrations. At that time, the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland organized an Oxford debate for high school students. The debate was summed up by Zybertowicz. It was also supposed to refer to the statement discussed by the participants of the meeting, which read: “The round table discussions were the only peaceful way to overthrow communism in Poland.” Zybertowicz publicly stated at the time that “many Round Table observers and commentators today do not realize how deep the truth was in Andrzej Gwiazda’s remark after the Round Table Talks, when he said: during the Round Table, power shared power with its own agents.”
Thirty-seven former oppositionists and participants in the roundtables, including Ryszard Bugaj, Władysław Frasyniuk, Andrzej Celiński, Aleksander Hall, Adam Strzembosz, Henryk Wujec and Andrzej Zoll demanded an apology from Zybertowicz and payment for social causes.
Apologies from Zybertowicz – insufficient
Andrzej Zybertowicz then apologized for his words – “those who participated in this project in good faith, who were never involved in any dealings with the services of the People’s Republic of Poland.” However, the apology on TVN24 was deemed insufficient. Prosecutors demanded that the apology be on the front pages of four national dailies, Zybertowicz would also buy airtime after the main edition of Fakty TVN and Wiadomości TVP and deliver the text of the apology.
In October last year, judge Karol Smaga, who ruled in the first instance, ordered the president’s adviser to publish an apology in “Gazeta Wyborcza” – on the front page of this daily newspaper, stating the technical parameters of this apology . He rejected compensation for a social purpose.
Heavy punishment for expressing an opinion
The plaintiffs demanded an apology for the total amount of more than PLN 1 million, so it is undoubtedly a success that the court rejected most of the claim, including the entire property claim. Nevertheless, the price to pay for an advertisement on the front page of a national newspaper can lead to the so-called chilling effect of citing the opinions of +witnesses to history+, certainly including Andrzej Gwiazda. This will have huge implications for historical research and freedom of expression
— reviewed Zybertowicz’s second attorney, attorney Jerzy Pasieka.
In turn, the plaintiffs’ attorney Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram noted last October that “the statement that +power shared power with its agents+ undermined the performance of the opposition of these representatives of the anti-communist opposition; these statement stigmatized them and violated trust in them”.
The court decides on the excessive length of the procedure within 2 months of the submission of the complaint. The court that accepts the complaint can award PLN 2,000 to PLN 20,000 from the treasury. zloty.
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— The court has a civil suit against Prof. Zybertowicz. The verdict in this case is due on October 13
Judgment, but for what? What did Prof. Zybertowicz do? If the judge appeals to ordinary logic, he will declare the accusation unfounded
rm/PAP
Source: wPolityce