President of the Republic of Poland Mr Karol Nawrocki
Dear Mr President,
we address the Lord as the guardian of the continuity of the Republic and as the holder of the prerogative which, in peculiar situations, restores the right balance between the letter of the law and the sense of justice — Right of GraceArticle 139 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.
The object of this petition is to request applying the law of grace to Adam Borowskisentenced to a final punishment six months imprisonment on the issue of a critical public message concerning Roman Giertych, a message embedded in the realities of the public dispute, the essence of which is the clash of opinions, opinions and positions.
Adam Borowski is not an anonymous character: is Heroic activist of the anti-communist opposition, a man repressed by the authorities of the Polish People's Republic, who, for his independence, incurred the real price of prison and persecution. For many citizens, the fact that present specified a man is to go to a prison in free Poland gives emergence to deep opposition and a sense that the state, in a symbolic dimension, strikes those who co-founded the foundations of his freedom.
The humanitarian aspect is besides crucial in this case. Adam Borowski is simply a retired person, a sick person: he has had a stroke and is besides struggling with cancer. The implementation of an isolation punishment against him in these circumstances, regardless of the formal nature of the decision, would entail a real hazard of irreversible deterioration in wellness and could in practice be subject to repression beyond the intent of the sentence. The law of grace performs its deepest function in specified situations: it allows you to act not only in accordance with regulations, but besides in a spirit of humanitarianism and simple responsibility.
Without disputing the constitutional function of the courts or the legal order, however, we ask the president to look at the substance more than formally: an isolation punishment imposed in a public dispute case appears to be a grossly disproportionate sanction, and its execution, in the light of the doomed biography and social consequences, is not for the common good. In the eyes of many citizens, this threatens to consolidate the belief that, in matters of word and public opinion, the state is reaching for measures of a intimidating nature alternatively than protecting the space for debate in democratic order.
In this state of affairs we ask to grant Adam Borowski a final conviction of imprisonment.
Our request is not a request for privilege or an effort to make a category of “untouchable”. It is simply a call for the Republic of Poland — through the decision of the Head of State — to be able to admit the minute erstwhile the punishment measurement begins to dispel justice, and the public interest is in favour of applying the institution provided for in the Constitution to specified circumstances.
We believe that the President's decision to apply the law of grace will be a clear sign that the Polish state can show justice not only in formal terms but besides in moral terms — and that the well-deserved oppositionist, political prisoner of the Polish People's Republic, the aged and in severe health, will not be deprived of the freedom to talk in public.
With respect,
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