Polish justice minister says investigative process will continue
EJ / JD
16.07.2024, 19:28
Adam Bodnar, Poland’s justice minister, has told TVP World that the current government’s policy of investigating its predecessors and restoring the rule of law will continue for as long as necessary to reach fruition, even if this requires waiting for a change of president.
Investigations into alleged misrule by the previous Law and Justice (PiS)-led government have centered largely around possible misuse of the Justice Fund, a pool of money created to help victims of crime. Former officials have been accused of misappropriating the fund for political ends, including the purchase of the Pegasus covert surveillance software.
TVP World’s Don Arleth asked Bodnar whether he was out to catch bigger names than those already facing charges. Bodnar made the point that those being prosecuted now are not all minor figures as they include Marcin Romanowski, a former deputy justice minister arrested by the Internal Security Agency on Tuesday having been stripped of his parliamentary immunity. He said further investigations may lead to charges being brought against people higher up the political ladder.
“My mission is to bring accountability,” he said. “In this transition moment when we are coming out of eight years of an illiberal regime in Poland, it is important to bring justice to those people who were simply misusing the system.” He said this applied both to people abusing public office “for political purposes or simply for financial gain.”
Bodnar went on to say that in relation to the Justice Fund, his predecessor, Zbigniew Ziobro, may “at a certain point… be subject to some proceedings because he’s the one who knew about the case and he didn’t react… because his party was taking advantage of the Justice Fund… for political purposes.”
Bodnar denied his government is pursuing a political agenda as the Justice Fund case has been known since 2019 but no action was taken by the previous administration. He said the same applied to other high-profile cases, including the Pegasus affair.
In the context of restoring the independence of the judiciary—a key election promise of the new government and a sticking point between PiS and the EU—Bodnar said work is ongoing on a raft of legislation aimed at restoring the independence of the judiciary.
“We would like to move forward with adopting those laws by the end of 2024, and then… we have presidential elections,” he said. “It seems that with the current president there is not much chance of being in this collaborative mood regarding the judiciary, so maybe those laws would have to wait for the new president to come.”
The justice minister added that he assumed a new president would be “one who supports the reform of the judiciary.”
