The CBA cashier will be released

The decision was announced on Wednesday by a panel of Supreme Court judges headed by Judge Jerzy Grubba. It means that both a long-time cashier CBAas well as her husband, will soon be released from prison. Now their trials will start again. The oral justification given by Supreme Court judge Kazimierz Klugiewicz shows that the problem was the person of judge Anna Nowakowska. She participated in a trial in the Court of Appeal and failed the independence test in several other cases.

The verdict in the second instance was announced by the Warsaw Court of Appeal in June 2022, i.e. two and a half years after the theft case came to light. The court sentenced the cashier, Katarzyna G., to six years and four months in prison, and her husband, Dariusz G., to eight years.

The entire process took place behind closed doors. The court agreed with the prosecutor's arguments that this was based on the “private interest” of the G. couple, as well as the public good, which it considered the secrets of managing the operational fund by the anti-corruption service.

In the case of a married couple, it concerned issues related to the gambling addiction of a man working in one of the telephone companies. Because Katarzyna G. had cash, a total of over PLN 9 million, which her husband spent on betting on the results of football matches. At the peak, his STS account had PLN 38 million, which he ultimately lost.

The prosecutor's office found no evidence that Katarzyna G. spent the money stolen from the CBA to improve her and her children's standard of living, but only on further bets made by her husband.

According to unofficial information confirmed by several sources, the theft case came to light as a result of a personal decision by Katarzyna G. In the last days of December 2019, she was to confess to her superiors that she had been stealing from the CBA for almost three years.

– She ridiculed and completely destroyed the image of the CBA as a professional service. The amount that it amounted to without any problems was a tenth of the formation's annual budget, commented Paweł Wojtunik, head of this institution between 2009 and 2015.

No checks revealed any cash shortages in the operating fund safe, which she had managed solely for thirteen years.

She appeared in service with the long-time director of the finance department, Daniel A., a close colleague Mariusz Kamiński, Maciej Wąsik and Ernest Bejda when they created the anti-corruption service in 2006.

The prosecutor's office also brought charges against the director of finance at the end of 2022. Investigators found that he had not fulfilled his duties as director of the finance department, because no inspection revealed any shortages in the cash register. As we revealed in tvn24.pl, he was charged “in installments”. Initially, he was charged with a severe charge under Article 231, paragraph 2 of the Penal Code.

This is an important paragraph because it increases liability for exceeding powers or failing to fulfill duties for a public official to up to ten years in prison. In the case of uniformed pensioners, it also means loss in the event of a final conviction pensions as well as, for example, a company apartment.

However, prosecutors from the Warsaw Regional Prosecutor's Office ultimately softened this charge at the end of 2022, leaving Article 231 in place but changing paragraph 1. This change only means a prison sentence of up to three years and does not involve a possible loss of pension.

The case of the theft in 2020 was revealed by the media, the service and the coordinating minister, Mariusz Kamiński, kept it secret even from members of the parliamentary committee for secret services.

As a result, the then head of the CBA, Ernest Bejda, lost the chance to renew his 4-year term of office. However, he did not suffer any consequences for the lack of supervision. He soon received a position on the management board of the largest Polish insurer, the PZU group. As we revealed in tvn24.pl, he worked there while still remaining an officer of the Central Anticorruption Bureau.

The independence test is an institution that was introduced by an amendment to the Act on the Supreme Court in the summer of 2022. In its current assumptions, it is intended to enable examination of a judge's compliance with the requirements of independence and impartiality, taking into account the circumstances surrounding his appointment and his conduct after his appointment, if in the circumstances of a given case they may lead to a violation of the standard of independence or impartiality, affecting the outcome of the case.

The possibility of such tests is provided for all judges, and in accordance with applicable regulations, an application for such a test may be submitted by a party to the proceedings conducted by a given judge.

However, according to the changes in the amendment, the test of a judge's impartiality could be initiated not only by the party to the proceedings, but also “ex officio” by the court itself. The amendment also supplemented the possibility of examining the requirements of independence and impartiality during the “test” with the premise of establishing a court “on the basis of a statute”. At the same time, the requirement of “impact on the outcome” of a given case was to be deleted from the provision on this test.

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