The First President of the Supreme Court demanded nearly 400 thousand złoty from the state for serving as director of the National School of Judiciary and Public Prosecution (KSSiP). As reported by “Rzeczpospolita”, the District Court in Warsaw dismissed her lawsuit and deemed her claims unfounded.
As described on Thursday by “Rzeczpospolita”, at the end of 2021 Małgorzata Manowska filed a lawsuit for payment of the debt, in which she sued the State Treasury represented by the Minister of Justice and Supreme Court and KSSiP. Due to, among other things, formal deficiencies, the lawsuit was supplemented and re-filed in November 2023. Manowska demanded payment of PLN 329,000 with interest, i.e. almost PLN 400,000.
The Supreme Court, as a defendant, was excluded from the proceedings. The District Court in Warsaw ruled on the case on Thursday and dismissed Manowska's lawsuit. The president must also cover the costs of the proceedings. However, this ruling is not final. Manowska's attorney did not want to comment on the verdict.
As we read in “Rzeczpospolita”, in the extensive justification of the decision, judge Mariusz Solka noted that Ministry of Justice and KSSiP, the defendants in this lawsuit, are not obligated to pay Manowska a functional supplement. According to the court, the defendants were not Manowska's employers as the principal of this school.
Malgorzata Manowskasn.pl
Małgorzata Manowska sued the State Treasury
According to the website, the case began in 2016. At that time, Manowska, still a judge of the court of appeal, was appointed by Zbigniew Ziobro as director of the National School of Judiciary and Public Prosecution. She held this position until May 2020. For this, she received several thousand złoty per month in functional and special allowances. In October 2018, Manowska was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. At that time, she received a new delegation from the minister to serve as director of the National School of Judiciary and Public Prosecution, already as a judge of the Supreme Court.
A dispute then arose. The then First President of the Supreme Court, Małgorzata Gersdorf, believed that Manowska, as a Supreme Court judge, could not hold the position of director of the KSSiP and thus be subordinate to the Minister of Justice. As reported by “Rzeczpospolita”, both President Gersdorf and the then President of the Civil Chamber claimed that the provisions of the Supreme Court Act do not allow the Minister of Justice to delegate judges of that court, therefore the disputed delegation did not have any official consequences.
Małgorzata Manowska did not agree with this position and claimed that the director of KSSiP could be both a judge of a common court and the Supreme Court. In connection with this, Manowska continued to head the Kraków school, but did not receive any additional remuneration from the Supreme Court for performing this function.
Main image source: sn.pl