The Minister of Justice signed a regulation on the rules for allocating funds from the Justice Fund. “The amended regulations eliminated, among others, the controversial paragraph 11, which allows for the delegation of tasks outside the competition procedure,” the reosrt statement said. It was added that Adam Bodnar signed the decision in this matter on November 13.
The ministry's announcement stated that “paragraph 11 was introduced into the regulation of the Minister of Justice under the previous government in 2017.”
It was recalled that in 2022 after the report NIK formal criteria were added, changing the content of paragraph 11. According to the new wording, it was possible to sign a contract for the implementation of a task that was not included in any program or competition of the Justice Fund. “This raised many doubts, especially due to the lack of transparency in the allocation of funds. The fund, created with the intention of supporting crime victims and rehabilitating convicts, became the subject of controversy and accusations of abuse,” the ministry wrote.
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“Inglorious paragraph”
“In the years 2017-2023, as part of the crime prevention program, the Justice Fund transferred over PLN 216 million to almost 130 organizations. These funds were repeatedly transferred contrary to their intended purpose and the precisely defined social mission of the fund,” we read in the ministry's announcement. According to the ministry, “many of them adopted a specific political and ideological color instead of focusing on crime victims and their needs.”
Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz, current deputy minister of justice, responsible in the ministry, among others, for the Justice Fund, quoted in the announcement says that “this infamous paragraph 11 allowed the Minister of Justice to voluntarily dispose of public funds from the Fund without competition, without recruitment, without any control”. “Its removal will limit the freedom to dispose of the Justice Fund's money and increase transparency in the spending of public funds,” he adds.
Adam BodnarTomasz Gzell/PAP
The purpose of the changes is to increase transparency
It was indicated that “the purpose of the changes contained in the new regulation is to increase transparency and limit discretion in managing funds Victims' Assistance Fund and Post-penitentiary Assistance. The changes are primarily intended to prevent funds intended for people in need of support from being used for political purposes, such as influencing election results or supporting specific politicians.
The new regulation introduces, among other things – as we read in the announcement – the requirement to specify the content of the competition and offer announcement, precise rules for appointing competition committees, detailed offer evaluation criteria, the obligation to publish the results of the offer competition and the amounts awarded to individual entities.
“The administrator of the funds will be obliged to clearly define the objectives of the task, the group of recipients and the rules of its implementation. There will be no possibility of refusing to grant a grant proposed by the competition committee, nor the possibility of invalidating the competition without giving a reason. The changes are also intended to limit the discretion of decisions and eliminate the possibility of awarding tasks without competition – in the non-bid mode” – added at the end of the announcement.
Justice Fund investigation
The National Prosecutor's Office's investigation into the Justice Fund, which has been ongoing since February this year, is multi-threaded. The case concerns, among other things, the abuse of powers and failure to fulfill duties by the Minister of Justice and ministry officials in recent years, who were responsible for the management, distribution and settlement of financial resources from the Justice Fund. The fund's main task is to provide assistance to victims of crime, as well as, among others, post-penitentiary assistance.
In the opinion of prosecutors, financial support was granted in a discretionary and arbitrary manner to the beneficiaries of programs unrelated to the objectives of the Justice Fund, which was to the detriment of the public interest – the State Treasury and private interest, which resulted in limited availability of funds for authorized entities.
At the request of the prosecutor's office, the Sejm waived the immunities of MPs and former deputy ministers of justice Marcin Romanowski and Michał Wos in the Justice Fund case. As announced, further requests to waive immunity in this investigation cannot be ruled out.
Main photo source: Tomasz Gzell/PAP