The Warsaw-Praga District Court ruled that judge Waldemar Żurek violated the personal rights of the spokesman of the Supreme Court of judge Aleksander Stępkowski. By the court's decision, Żurek is to submit a statement in which he apologizes and pay PLN 25,000 with interest to a social cause. – This trial was about the dignity of a Supreme Court judge. I claim that Mr. Stępkowski is not a legally appointed judge of the Supreme Court – said Judge Żurek in a conversation with journalists. He also announced he would appeal against the verdict.
The case was decided by a single panel on Thursday, judge Agnieszka Perehubka, and the verdict was announced without the court's consent to record the image. The reason for the lawsuit by Judge Aleksander Stępkowski, who is also a spokesman for the Supreme Court, were Żurek's statements quoted by the Prawa.pl portal. He was to state, among other things, that “the National Council of the Judiciary (National Council of the Judiciary – ed.) should certainly be purged of people who agreed judgments with the executive power, which is visible to the naked eye.”
An example in this case – as Judge Żurek is quoted by the portal – was the judgment of the Supreme Court's Extraordinary Control Chamber regarding permission for a cyclical meeting of nationalists to commemorate the Warsaw Uprising of August 1, 1944. “The presiding judge was a deputy minister, and the complaint was filed by his former boss,” we read in the article. In the court's opinion, taking into account the judgments issued by Judge Stępkowski, there is no doubt that this statement concerns Judge Aleksander Stępkowski.
Judge Waldemar ŻurekPAP/Łukasz Gągulski
Judge Żurek is to apologize and donate to a social cause
“The court believes that this statement, in the context of Judge Stępkowski's negotiation of judgments with the executive power, is a statement that violates his goods, good name and dignity as a judge, as well as a researcher at the University of Warsaw. It reached a wide audience and was received negatively by part of the University of Warsaw community, of course in a negative context and connoting the injured person himself,” judge Perehubka justified the ruling.
The court ordered Żurek to submit a statement in which he was to apologize to Stępkowski and to pay PLN 25,000. PLN with interest for the Single Mother's Home. Teresa Strzębosz in Chyliczki near Warsaw, run by the Blisko Rodziny Foundation.
“I apologize to Supreme Court judge Aleksander Stępkowski for violating his honor and good name and the dignity of his judicial office, as well as his scientific reputation, by falsely and unjustly attributing to him, in a statement for the Prawa.pl portal, published on June 24, 2023, unworthy behavior which “never took place,” reads the text of the dictated statement.
“I regret that with this statement I undermined the trust in Aleksander Stępkowski necessary for him to hold the office of judge of the Supreme Court and conduct scientific and teaching activities,” it added.
An appeal against the court's decision was announced
– We will definitely appeal – said Judge Żurek in a conversation with journalists. He also noted that his attorneys did not request the exclusion of the panel of judges because Judge Agnieszka Perehubka is not the so-called a neo-judge, i.e. she was not nominated in the procedure of the current National Council of the Judiciary, which, in the form shaped by the amendment to the Act on the National Council of the Judiciary of December 2017, is – in the opinion of, among others, the current authorities – a politicized institution.
– Your judge is not a so-called neojudge, but she has already successfully passed the proceedings before the neoKRS. The judge is waiting in the president's so-called freezer. We do not know for what reasons, so we concluded that there are no formal grounds for making such an exclusion, said Judge Żurek.
– We also have threshold cases such as this, where we have someone who ran before this body, is waiting and his promotion depends on the president's decision. You can answer yourselves the question about the relationship between Mrs. (President of the Supreme Court Małgorzata – ed.) Manowska and the president, as well as her press spokesman (Stępkowski – ed.), who was the plaintiff in this case – he added. Żurek also said that a fragment of the statement quoted by Prawa.pl on this matter “was inconsistent with what he actually said and was not authorized.”
Żurek: Mr. Stępkowski is not a legally appointed judge of the Supreme Court
Judge Żurek noted that “in his interviews he never uses the word KRS in relation to this institution, which is now and always uses the word neoKRS.” He also pointed out another error, which was that Stępkowski was not – as his statement quoted by the portal suggests – a deputy minister of justice, but a deputy minister of foreign affairs.
– Moreover, Mr. Stępkowski himself, testifying before the court at the last hearing, said that with this lady (author of the text – editor) there is no problem with correcting the statements she gives, because these statements are often quoted imprecisely. This is a personal statement from the plaintiff a week ago. The court did not pay any attention to this at all, emphasized Judge Żurek. He also informed that when he received the lawsuit, he asked the publishing house that publishes the portal Prawa.pl to publish a correction.
Ewa Usowicz, editor-in-chief of the portal praw.pl, referred to Żurek's words on Thursday, saying that after the interview he did not raise any objections to the article or demand a correction. – Only eight months after the publication of the above-mentioned article, Judge Żurek asked me for a correction, claiming that his statement in the text was incorrectly written. For the above reasons, the correction did not deserve to be accepted – said Usowicz. As she recalled, the Press Law stipulates that the correction should be submitted to the editorial office no later than 21 days from the publication of the press material.
In Żurek's opinion, the essence of Stępkowski's lawsuit against him is, among others, the question of the dignity of a Supreme Court judge. – Not a person's personal dignity. Just like each of us, he has his own dignity and does not want his well-being violated. This trial was about the dignity of a Supreme Court judge. I claim that Mr. Stępkowski is not a legally appointed judge of the Supreme Court – he said, emphasizing that his statements in this case are based on the rulings of legal judges of the Supreme Court, as well as European tribunals such as CJEU.
The legal dispute between Stępkowski and Żurek is part of a broader context of debates on the legality of judicial appointments made with the participation of the current National Council of the Judiciary and the status of the so-called neojudges in the Polish legal system. The politicization of the National Council of the Judiciary – in the opinion of the Ministry of Justice – means that currently 23 out of 25 members of the Council are either politicians or elected by politicians.
The Ministry reminds that this is inconsistent not only with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union and the opinions of other institutions monitoring the rule of law, but also with the Polish constitution and the resolution of the three chambers of the Supreme Court of January 23, 2020.
Main photo source: PAP/Łukasz Gągulski