What happened must be treated as the most brutal encroachment into the sphere of intimacy and personal rights of another person – said on Friday in “Fakty po Faktach” Professor Marek Safjan, a judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union, who commented on Joanna’s case. In his opinion, in Poland “we are dealing with a whole series of events that clearly prove that people are becoming helpless.”
In recent days, there has been a discussion about the case of Joanna, who decided to take an abortion pill because the pregnancy was supposed to threaten her health. She felt bad both physically and mentally. She informed her doctor about it. In the Krakow hospital, she was interrogated and searched by the police. The officers took her laptop and phone. The case was presented by “Fakty” TVN.
SEE THE MATERIAL OF “FACTS” TVN: Joanna took the abortion pill. The police came to the hospital, took her laptop and phone
Courtexamining a complaint about taking the phone and ordering its return, reminded the police that Mrs. Joanna was not a suspect, nor was she even considered to be charged.
Jarosław Szymczyk, the chief of the police, presented recordings at a press conference, which recorded a call to the emergency number by Mrs. Joanna’s doctor and the receipt of a report in this case by the police. When asked by TVN24 about the actions taken by the police in the hospital, Szymczyk replied that “this is a normal procedure for people who we suspect want to take their own lives.”
“Today I just made sure that the police were hunting me for an abortion. I never said my mood was about abortion. I made it over a week before calling the doctor – Joanna commented on Thursday’s police press conference in an interview. Her attorney announced that she would submit a notification to the prosecutor’s office in connection with the actions of the police.
Safjan: it was the most brutal intrusion into the sphere of intimacy and personal rights
The professor spoke about the case in the Friday edition of “Fakty po Faktach”. Marek Safjan, judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union, former president of the Constitutional Tribunal. “Based on the information I have gathered from the media, I can say that the case is shocking. I perceive it as a kind of manifestation or manifestation of the authorities’ behavior based on, in fact, repressive actions and motives towards the individual – he said. He added, “This is something extremely disturbing.”
Professor Marek Safjan in “Fakty po Faktach” TVN24
– We see this very violent behavior towards a person who did not commit a crime, because it needs to be clearly stated. A defenseless individual who is faced with state violence, all state violence, emphasized Safjan.
– You can say that there is a certain symbolic message or generalization in this. This is not the first situation of this kind. Sometimes I have the impression that I watch and read about these situations in Poland, and there are quite a few of them, that we are dealing with a whole series of events that clearly prove that people are becoming defenseless – noted the TVN24 guest.
– Now we are faced with such a situation. Isn’t this a manifestation of something more general? Namely, the behavior of the authorities, which begin to treat citizens not subjectively, but objectively, as if forgetting about the basic rights of the individual – he said.
Safjan stressed that today Joanna can be described as a victim. – This is a violation of her very basic personal rights. Let us remember that what happened must be treated as the most brutal intrusion into the sphere of intimacy and personal rights of another person – he added.
Safjan on the situation in the Constitutional Tribunal: I treat it in a way as an element of my own failure in my biography
The guest of “Fakty po Faktach” also referred to the stalemate around the Constitutional Tribunal. “I must say that I look at this with great regret and sadness. And I treat it, in a sense, as an element of the defeat of my own biography, said the former President of the Constitutional Tribunal.
– I, like my predecessors and successors, were building an institution that was to perform an extremely important task from the point of view of protecting the standards of the rule of law. And it worked. The Tribunal, not boasting, was, in the period when I held this function, an institution that enjoyed great authority and whose decisions were treated as a premise for determining what is a standard. People turned to the Constitutional Tribunal, after all, there were hundreds of constitutional complaints, with the conviction that they could receive an answer from it regarding the protection of their constitutional rights – added the TVN24 guest.
Safjan on the situation in the Constitutional Tribunal: I treat it in a way as an element of my own failure in my biographyTVN24
At the same time, he emphasized that “unfortunately, this situation has changed dramatically since 2016, after the end of the term of office of President Andrzej Rzepliński.” – And at this point we are dealing with an institution that does not resemble the Constitutional Tribunal. I will use the term that seems most appropriate to me. Namely, it is an institution that is a kind of chimera. It means such a combination of a form that remains externally the same, but the essence of things has changed in a radical way – added Safjan.
– What is happening in the Tribunal is, first of all, inconsistent with the Polish constitution, which of course all lawyers dealing with these issues have been saying for a long time (…). Judgments that question the basic provisions of the treaty can be treated as a kind of declaration of withdrawal from the Union with all the consequences for citizens, for functioning in the European Union. You have to realize that it’s not abstract, the professor pointed out.
Dispute in the Constitutional Tribunal
A dispute has been going on in the Constitutional Tribunal for several months about the term of office of Julia Przyłębska as president of the Constitutional Tribunal, which has recently made it impossible for the Tribunal to convene in full (at least 11 out of 15 judges). According to some lawyers, including former and current judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, Przyłębska’s term of office expired after 6 years, i.e. on December 20, 2022, and at the same time she cannot apply for this function again.
According to Przyłębska herself, as well as the prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and some experts, her term of office expires in December 2024 – together with the end of Przyłębska’s term as a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Due to the dispute in the Constitutional Tribunal, a full court decision is still pending, among others, the application submitted in February by the President Andrzej Duda on the amendment to the law on the Supreme Court, which – according to PiS politicians – is to enable the implementation of the “milestone” from which European Union conditional on the payment of funds National Reconstruction Plan.
READ ALSO: Mariusz Muszyński reveals an appeal to the judges. “The verdict will be settled, we will get KPO”
All current judges of the Tribunal are appointed by the current ruling majority.
Main photo source: TVN24