Virtual Poland reached the second part of the NIK paper – 1 which concerns not beneficiaries anymore, but the Ministry of Justice itself and the management of the Justice Fund. The audit covered the period from 2021 to June 2024, but according to the description, actions and papers disclosed until the end of the audit, which was until May 2025, were besides assessed. The study was to be valid from the end of August 2025, yet it has not yet been published in full.
Competitions "for selected", evaluation without competence
The findings of the auditors show that the staff liable for assessing applications and clearing contracts have been underestimated for years and that the competence of the evaluators frequently did not fit the programme scale. The study is to supply an example of an intern assessing applications for grants, as well as situations where multi-million-dollar investment projects were assessed by people without any substantive cognition of a given area.
NIK besides describes the mechanics of "improvement" of evaluation cards so that the final consequence of the competition can change after the committee's work. In utmost cases, negative versions would vanish in the file, and fresh affirmative ones would appear – signed by others.
The procedures were expected to make the impression of a competition, but the decision was actually made elsewhere. And if you lacked expertise, then the ministry could scope for external "experts", only not necessarily where it was logical to aid victims of crime.
Promotion more crucial than aid
One of the most striking fragments of the study is to compare expenditure on self-promotion and real support for victims. NIK notes that in 2023 the costs of promotion contracts and the acquisition of airtime were higher than the full envelope for psychotherapy, psychiatric and intellectual assistance and legal assistance for victims of crime.
Moreover, there is criticism of how promotional activities are carried out. The study identifies the violations of public procurement rules and the deficiency of hard verification of whether public money actually delivered what was recorded in the contracts.
After the change of power was expected to be healing, and NIK sees chaos
Also interesting are the passages of the period after the fresh power took over the ministry. NIK is expected to indicate that staff problems have not disappeared, and after the reorganization the number of people "at the front" of settlements and supervision has even decreased. At the same time, corrective actions were to be inconsistent without a clear concept.
The Ministry announced the competitions, after which it cancelled them, explaining the request for changes in regulations, but a comprehensive amendment was not carried out. Then, on the same basis, more calls were launched, which actually meant another condition of unnecessary work for anyone.
The auditors are besides to critically measure that with the awareness of limited staff, the ministry focused on launching fresh types of facilities alternatively of stabilising the existing support network. NIK admits that the accounting of the "inheritance" of predecessors and parallel investigations made it hard to work, but at the same time puts the strong thesis that this cannot be an excuse for omissions in the accomplishment of the fund's basic objectives.
Half a million without checking whether the service was always performed
The study is besides expected to present a very bitter description of the Social Council of the Justice Fund, set up in 2024 by then Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar, to aid in the resolution of the situation. According to the findings of the NIK, the council was to lose momentum quickly, due to the fact that after respective minutes of meetings, her work was to go into a expression of non-formal talks, and the activity study had to be extracted from it by reminders. The effect is that the body to support the reforms did not in practice supply the tools to unlock the fund.
One example is simply a description of the situation with the payment of promotional commitments inherited from the predecessors. NIK is expected to indicate that the ministry paid approx. PLN 500 1000 for place emissions, despite the fact that the contractor had not been verified to the agreed extent.
The translation that "there were no tools to check it out," the controllers were to find it unconvincing. Even erstwhile the goal was to "clean up" after the predecessors, NIK felt it was done besides unreflexively.
