A motion to exclude judge Przemysław Dziwański from the arrest case of MP Marcin Romanowski has been filed with the president of the District Court in Warsaw – the National Prosecutor's Office confirmed. In the letter, the prosecutor's office draws attention to two issues.
“Yesterday, the prosecutor from the Investigation Team No. 2 of the National Prosecutor's Office submitted a motion to the president of the District Court in Warsaw – pursuant to art. 47b sec. 1 and 3 of the Act on the System of Common Courts – to change the composition of the court in the person of the case officer – Regional Court Judge Przemysław Dziwański” – the press service of the National Prosecutor's Office reported.
The reasons for filing the motion are – according to the prosecutor's office – the occurrence of a long-term obstacle and the impossibility of examining the case in the current composition of the District Court in Warsaw, which is to deal with the refusal of the lower court to arrest Romanowski. Politician of Sovereign Poland, MP of the club PISwho was the deputy head of the Ministry of Justice in 2019-2023 supervising the Justice Fund, is suspected of, among other things, rigging competitions for money from this fund. The charges against him include an amount of over PLN 112 million 126 thousand.
Art. 47b par. 1 of the Act on the Organization of Common Courts, to which the prosecutor's office referred, states that “a change in the composition of the court may only occur if it is impossible to hear the case in the previous composition or if there is a long-term obstacle to hearing the case in the previous composition”. In turn, according to par. 3 of this article, decisions in such cases are made by the president of the court or a judge authorized by him.
The fact that the Provincial Commission “is not giving up on the case of the adjudicating panel that is to consider her appeal against the refusal to arrest” Romanowski was first reported by the OKO.press portal. The portal reported that a new motion to exclude the so-called neo-judge Przemysław Dziwański from the case was submitted to the president of the District Court in Warsaw, Beata Najjar, who may make a decision based on the act on the system of common courts.
The prosecutor's office raises two issues
“The National Prosecutor's Office claims that there are two rulings in legal circulation concerning the exclusion of the newly-judge Przemysław Dziwański, who is the referent of the case, from the adjudicating panel. The first ruling refuses to exclude him, the second excludes him. The second issue raised by the prosecutor's office in a letter to the president of the court concerns the fact that her appeal against the refusal to arrest her will not be considered until the end of September. And according to the regulations, the court should do it within 7 days,” the portal noted.
The District Court in Warsaw, which received a complaint from the National Prosecutor's Office against the refusal of a lower court to arrest Romanowski in connection with the investigation concerning the Justice Fund, announced on August 14 that a hearing in this case would be held on September 27. The ruling – based on the decision of the head of the 10th Criminal Appeals Division, Judge Monika Jankowska – is to be issued by three judges: Przemysław Dziwański, Wanda Jankowska-Bebeszko and Leszek Parzyszek.
In addition, the court announced that the presiding judge had decided that the three judges would independently decide on the composition of the judges in this case.
The case of judge Przemysław Dziwański
Earlier – on 12 August – the same court announced that Dziwański had been excluded from the three-person panel that was to decide this case. On 2 August, the prosecutor's office requested his exclusion, justifying that he had been nominated by the defectively formed National Council of the Judiciary, and had also signed a list of support for the National Council of the Judiciary for the former deputy head of the Ministry of Justice Łukasz Piebiak. This application – by decision of 7 August – was not considered. However, on 12 August, the decision to exclude Judge Dziwański was made by Judge Krzysztof Chmielewski while considering the application of Judge Aleksandra Rusin-Batko, who requested that she be excluded from the adjudicating panel.
The District Court in Warsaw is to consider the prosecutor's office's appeal against the decision of the District Court for Warsaw-Mokotów, which on 16 July did not consent to the arrest of MP Romanowski due to his immunity from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The prosecutor's office claims in the appeal that the legal analysis indicates that the scope of immunity protection concerning Romanowski in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe does not cover the acts he is accused of. The investigators also announced that if the District Court in Warsaw upholds the decision of the court of first instance to refuse to arrest Romanowski due to the immunity of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, they will apply for its lifting.
Main image source: PAP/Marcin Obara