On 29 April 2020, a group of 1278 Polish judges addressed a call to the Organisation of safety and Cooperation in Europe for the alleged enveloped elections to be drafted during the pandemic by the fresh president of Poland.
Among those afraid by the effort to violate the Constitution, the Electoral Code and another laws signed by a paper addressed to the OSCE, there were 31 judges from the Piotrk territory representing the territory Court in Piotrków Trybunalski and territory Courts in Bełchatów, Opoczno, Piotrków Trybunalski, Tomaszów Mazowiecki. Only in Radomsk territory Court was there anyone who would argue the illegal intentions of the Moravian government.
The list of judges is as follows:
SSO Magdalena Marczyńska, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Urszula Sipińska-Sęk, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Paweł Lasoń, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Beata Łapińska, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Ireneusz Grodek, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Agnieszka Leżańska, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Magdalena Zapala-Nowak,SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Katarzyna Sztandar, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Ewa Tomczyk, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Paweł Hochman, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Agnieszka Szulc-Wroniszewska, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Mariola Mastalerz, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Adam Boyko, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Tomasz Olszewski, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSO Dorota Krawczyk, SO in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSR Lucyna Szewczyk, SR in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSR Rafał Nalepa, SR in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSR Grażyna Marek, SR in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSR Małgorzata Kałuża, SR in Piotrków Trybunalski
SSR Przemysław Maciejewski, SR in Bełchatów
SSR Lucyna Szafranska, SR in Belchatov
SSR Beata Grabiszewska, SR in Bełchatów
SSR Tomasz Marczyński, SR in Bełchatów, Vice president of the Association of Polish Judges “Iustitia”
SSR Piotr Nowak, SR in Bełchatów
SSR Aneta Świtalska-Forenc, SR in Belchatów
SSR Piotr Fal, SR in Belchatów
SSR at remainder Krzysztof Lasota, SR in Opoczno
SSR at remainder Dorota Lasota, SR in Opoczno
SSR Jadwiga Świątek, SR in Opoczcie
SSR Mariusz Kubiczek, SR in Tomaszów Mazowiecki
SSR Robert Plaskota, SR in Tomaszów Mazowiecki
There is simply a function in the structures of the national judiciary disciplinary spokesperson for general court judges and their deputies; this a body which conducts disciplinary proceedings against judges and asessors and acts as prosecutor before a disciplinary court.
The Deputy Disciplinary Ombudsman at the territory Court in Piotrków is SSO Anna Gąsior-Majchrowska, appointed to service on 28 October 2019 by a disciplinary officer SSA Piotr Schab, which in turn became the consequence of the "reform of the judiciary" introduced by the Minister of Justice Ziobra bitten. Deputy Schab were: SSO Michał Lasota and SSA Przemysław Radzik – It was the second of them that sent a letter to his deputies, acting in the territory courts and appeals courts, in which he asked whether they had begun disciplinary proceedings against unruly judges who had 3 months earlier sent an open letter to the OSCE.
The only deputy disciplinary spokesperson in Poland who took to heart Radzik's proposition was justice Gąsior-Majchrowska. Her name gained designation after she presented charges to sixteen judges from the territory courts in Piotrków, Bełchatów, Tomaszów and Opoczno. At this point, it should be clarified that judges from the territory court are subject to ‘audits’ of the deputy spokesperson at the Łódź Court of Appeal.
Gąsior-Majchrowska accused the judges that They took up active public activity by taking an active stance in the current political dispute by formulating their own view and arguing against the circumstantial solutions proposed by 1 of the political parties in connection with the legislative process and the epidemic, which led to activities of indecent dignity of the office.
On 5 June 2020, the members of the Pyotrkov branch of "Iustitia" adopted the following resolution:
Members of the “Iustitia” Branch of the Association of Polish Judges in Piotrków Trybunalski express their deep concern about the decision taken by the Deputy Disciplinary Ombudsman at the territory Court in Piotrków Trybunalski, SSO Anna Gąsior – Majchrowska, preliminary investigations of judges who signed a letter of 28 April 2020 addressed to the Ambassador of the Organisation for safety and Cooperation in Europe.
We object to the designation that the "proposal in a letter to the Ambassador" of the OSCE in Europe is simply a violation by judges of the prohibition resulting from Article 178(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The judges who signed the above letter were guided only by concern for the Republic of Poland, and in no case should their action be regarded as incompatible with the principles of the independency of the courts and the independency of the judges. In this letter, the judges expressed their concerns about the threat to the universality of the election and the secrecy of the vote in the bill passed by the Sejm of 6 April 2020 and called for support, dialog and close monitoring of the ongoing electoral and legislative process. At the same time, they stressed that their reservations were not based on the political assessment of the solutions adopted, but only on the function in which they participate in the functioning of the State.
The above concerns about the elections were besides shared by the ultimate Court, which, in its opinion of 27 April 2020 on the Act of 6 April 2020 on the peculiar rules for the conduct of the general election of the president of the Republic of Poland ordered in 2020 (Senacki's printing No 99) assessed that the legislative arrangements adopted in the bill in question did not meet the standards of universal, equal, direct and secret elections, and "the subject change interferes with the constitutional essence of the election of the president of the Republic of Poland to the degree that it actually transforms them into a kind of postal service". In the opinion of the ultimate Court, the law besides violates the constitutional rule of equality, and, furthermore, due to the procedure for its adoption by the Sejm and its many substantive shortcomings, it should not be the subject of any further legislative work (www.sn.pl).
In view of the above arguments, we trust that the Ombudsman will share our position.
In September 2020, the WSA in Warsaw ruled that the Prime Minister's decision requiring the Polish Post to prepare the presidential election in a correspondence procedure seriously violated the law. The WSA stated that there are no rules granting the Prime Minister powers to organise general elections.
As time passed, the destiny of the judges went into oblivion, only the portal ‘Oko.press’ he continued to follow the actions of the Piotrk deputy disciplinary officer.
In mid-March, “Gazeta Trybunalska” asked Radosław Skiba's lawyer to defend sixteen judges asking for information on ongoing proceedings. In a telephone conversation, Mr. Skiba presented the facts and responded to the charges made to the judges. He besides sent a letter saying:
Dear Mr. Editor,
I am a defender (pro bono, cooperating with the Free Courts) of judges who have been accused of committing disciplinary misconduct by signing an open letter addressed to the manager of the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE, which, in the opinion of the Disciplinary Ombudsman, was expected to constitute an active attitude in the current political dispute and to stand up against the solutions proposed by 1 of the political parties, which would constitute a violation of the prohibition under Article 178(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland that a justice could not carry out public activities which would not be compatible with the principles of the independency of the courts and independency of the judges, and failed to exercise the dignity of the office indicating that the designation of electoral protests and the validity of elections was to take place before the home of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs of the SN, whose members-judges of the ultimate Court of Justice were appointed in a defective process causing the deficiency of independency of that Chamber, publically questioning the effectiveness of the appointment of the judges, which they undertook actions which would bring to the dignity of the justice and considering his impartiality and independence, it is simply a disciplinary error, that is based on Article 107 par. Law on the strategy of common courts in conjunction with Article 11 par.r. 2 of the Code of Conduct in conjunction with Article 128 u.s.
In my opinion in general, these allegations were politically motivated by what the message of objections points to – the judge, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, cannot publically express doubts about the legislative solutions proposed by the majority (because this is simply a commitment to a political dispute) and is not the problem of creating faulty solutions, for example, concerning the home of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs (as stated in the rulings of the Polish and European courts), but of criticising these solutions resulting in doubts about the independency of judges. So, in my opinion, it was about choking criticism and teasing judges.
At the moment, there are respective acquittals given in the first instance by both the Disciplinary Court at the Court of Appeals in Łódź and the Disciplinary Chamber of the ultimate Court and a couple held in force in the second instance by the IOZ SN.
Greetings
Adw. Radosław Skiba
This cognition was besides complemented by the vice-president of “Iustitii” by justice Marczyński of the SR in Belchatów writing to the editorial board “GT”:
According to my information, Mr Nowak was formally acquitted in the first instance of the SA in Łódź and in the second instance of the SN in Warsaw. In the first instance in the S.A. in Łódź, judges were wrongly acquitted: Forenc, Nalepa, Puddle. NeoKRS or s. Gąsior-Majchrowska filed appeals to SN and appeal proceedings are pending. justice Maciejewski was found to have been unlawfully acquitted in the SA in Warsaw, an appeal in the SN pending. Szafranska and Grabiszewska in I inst. exonerated illegally in SN. In SN, as a court of First Instance, the cases of judges are: Szewczyk, Fala, K. Lasota, D. Lasota, Marczyński. In my case, a neojudge from the SN asked a legal question to the Constitutional Court. As far as I know, the SN has asked the TEU for a preliminary ruling on the case of the judges Puddle, K and D. Lasotów and Szewczyk.
Judge Gąsior-Majchrowska is inactive Deputy Disciplinary Ombudsman at the territory Court in Piotrków.
→ K. Kozielski / cooperation (mb)
15.4.2025
• title photo: fragment of a image depicting Themida from the territory Court in Piotrków Trybunalski, photo: Mariusz Baryła / Gazeta Trybunalska
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