Marcin Romanowski holds a doctorate degree in legal sciences. He also holds a law degree from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, and he has completed postgraduate studies in law at the University of Regensburg in Bavaria. He is an associate professor in the department of theory and philosophy of Law at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. He was Deputy Minister of Justice of Poland from 2019 to 2023, and he was elected Member of Parliament for Polska Suwerenna (Sovereign Poland) on 23 October. His arrest by the police on 15 July caused a great scandal in Poland, but not in Brussels.
You were detained and handcuffed in front of the cameras by masked officers of the special services and taken to the National Prosecutor’s Office when it would have been sufficient to summon you to the prosecutor’s office. What message is the government sending with such an arrest?
The case concerns the time when I was deputy minister of justice in the United Right government. No one accuses me of corruption or obtaining any financial benefits, but rather of alleged abuse of power, because the current left-liberal government is trying to destroy and slander all those who may be dangerous to their interests and ideological madness. Hence the constant media attacks on me and our entire political environment, during this year’s election campaign for local and regional governments, and immediately afterwards during the elections for the European Parliament. And then the application from the Polish prosecutor’s office for permission to prosecute me—taken over for these purposes and politically controlled—was submitted to the Polish Sejm. On the same day that the Sejm lifted my immunity, I went to the prosecutor’s office. However, none of the prosecutors in charge of the case were interested in listening to me. My attorney submitted appropriate letters expressing their readiness to appear. Everything happened on Friday, so it is partly understandable that a “member of a dangerous criminal group” would not be questioned on Friday afternoon. We made another attempt to contact the prosecutor’s office on Monday morning, also without interest from law enforcement. Instead, after four hours, several dozen masked officers entered my apartment to lead me out in handcuffs in front of the cameras of all of the leading Polish media. Undoubtedly, using ‘strong gentlemen’ (a term known in Poland—Tusk threatened the president of the National Bank of Poland with being led out by ‘strong gentlemen’) was part of the attempt to organise a media and political spectacle.
However, the spectacle turned out to be a complete failure for the left-liberal audience because, the next day, the court ordered my immediate release. Before that happened, I was led in handcuffs to the prosecutor’s office and then to court. I do not call it an interrogation at the prosecutor’s office, because the filing of charges was ineffective. It was rather a ‘social gathering,’ although the company was not of my choice and the manner of invitation was at least inappropriate. I presented an extensive position in relation to the charges, which are indeed absurd. I pointed out that the arrest was illegal due to the lack of proper authorisation of the persons making procedural decisions (in January this year there was an illegal takeover of the prosecutor’s office, and staff purges which were equally illegal) and due to my immunity as a member of the PACE, which has not been waived.
What are the charges against you?
The allegations are related to the fact that I supervised, in the years 2019-2023, the so-called Justice Fund, to which funds were transferred from fines from perpetrators of crimes and were allocated for the operation of a network of assistance centres for victims, equipping volunteer firefighters with rescue equipment for road accidents, or for crime prevention projects. All of the allegations are of an administrative nature, with half of them being purely formal. I am accused of not excluding myself from supervising the settlement of certain projects, although there is no such legal requirement anywhere. Moreover, there is not even such a legal institution as exclusion from supervision. Formal allegations, that I allegedly did not have the competence to make decisions, are based—and I say this with full responsibility as an academic lecturer—on reasoning that would disqualify a first-year law student.
The second part of the allegations concerns alleged “rigging of competitions” and alleged influence on competition committees assessing projects for financing. All of this is in a legal situation in which the committee only made recommendations, and the decisions were made by me. Contrary to the unfounded allegations, there was no violation of public or private interests. There was no large-scale damage or breach of trust in economic turnover, because the projects were fully implemented, and my actions were not in the area of economic turnover, but of authoritative decisions. There was no financial gain—unless the gain was in the form of funds granted for projects that were implemented and about which I could decide,in accordance with the law. The biggest oddity is the accusation of personal gain that I allegedly achieved, resulting from the fact that the supported projects were of a conservative and Christian nature consistent with my worldview. And here we reach the heart of the matter. We supported—of course, not exclusively—projects combating Christianophobia and discrimination on religious grounds, combating the violation of Poland’s good name, and projects supporting the family as a natural environment for young people in which they grow up and are safe. If a religious or diocesan association reported a good project (e.g., supporting women and children affected by domestic violence), we financed such activities—and many others that go against the gender agenda.
The accusation describes these actions as part of an “organised criminal group.”
Yes, and it is completely absurd even at the level of the legal structure itself because, according to Polish law, the group must be established for a criminal purpose—so it is impossible to qualify alleged official crimes as committed in such a group. The accusation, of course, serves the media resonance and justification of the arrest. The real organised group is Tusk’s team which, since 13 December 2023, has committed a whole series of crimes from the position of high officials, starting with the illegal, forceful takeover of public television, through the takeover of the prosecutor’s office, and on to the actions we are talking about. During our government, many cases were initiated and charges were brought for corruption and misappropriation of property by Tusk’s close associates. It is also no coincidence that my main accuser of is a former director of the Ministry of Justice, whose explanations were prepared by attorney Roman Giertych—a man who is a leading politician of the left-liberal coalition, tasked with ‘holding to account’ the right-wing government.
Many may be surprised by his metamorphosis from a nationalist to a favourite of the leftist media. However, it is no secret to anyone that he is thirsty for revenge for the fact that, during our government, the prosecutor’s office charged him with withdrawing PLN 92 million from a listed company. Giertych fled to Italy to avoid responsibility. Thanks to his friendship with Tusk, he got a good place in the parliamentary elections and became an MP. Interestingly, even the current prosecutor’s office, completely subordinate to Tusk, is still conducting this case. So far, no one in the prosecutor’s office will take responsibility for dropping the charges brought against Gierych. This shows how serious these charges are, because the current team commonly drops cases that are inconvenient for Tusk’s people—for corruption, for attacking churches, or for soldiers defending the border with Belarus. At the same time, they persecute people associated with the right wing or the church, bringing absurd prosecutorial charges against them or applying long-term arrests. I presented the entire extensive argumentation concerning my case in the Polish parliament and then in the prosecutor’s office; but there, of course, it is not the force of argument that works, only the argument of force.
You are a Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and you are entitled to separate international immunity. The procedure was therefore a violation of your rights.
It is a huge paradox that it was the left-liberal apparatus of power that clearly broke international law even though they themselves attacked the right for allegedly violating it. They have always had slogans on their lips about not only the need to respect international law (which is obvious), but even its primacy over the Polish constitution. The latter is, of course, absurd; and it is precisely because of this depravity of international law—and the numerous cases of ultra vires actions on the part of the CJEU, the European Commission, or the ECtHR—that we often protested. States are the masters of treaties, and their content cannot be changed by the law-making case law of international courts, acting without the acceptance of the states that are parties to the convention. The Polish constitution has the highest legal force for us, similar to the case in other countries. We did not allow for its extra-treaty violation by international institutions.
The Polish Constitutional Tribunal ruled, for example, that the CJEU’s broad interpretation of the European treaties, allowing for the assessment of the institutional reform of the Polish judiciary, is an action that goes beyond the scope of competences transferred to the Union in the treaties and, as such, is inconsistent with the Polish constitution and hence non-binding. Someone had to show Luxembourg a yellow card before it sees a red one, as the British did. We have similarly questioned progressive proposals for international acts. For example, as Deputy Minister of Justice, I myself reported the need for Poland to denounce the so-called Istanbul Convention due to its ideological nature—all the more so because Polish solutions to combat domestic violence (that I prepared in recent years) are more effective than gender ideology. But we have never called for non-compliance with the law that is formally binding as the Tusk regime did openly, in broad daylight, in the light of cameras. That demonstrates exceptional impudence and arrogance.
Is there a precedent for this kind of prosecutorial action?
The current form of PACE immunity results from a Council of Europe Statute—the General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities—as well as from the PACE Rules of Procedure and several resolutions adopted in principle in the first two decades of the current century. Primary and secondary law of the Council of Europe regulates that PACE immunity is independent of national immunity and must be waived separately, and the protection extends to basically all criminal cases and covers the entire period of PACE membership. So far, there have been five cases of activation of the immunity protection of a PACE member, but only Putin’s Russia has violated these guarantees, illegally detaining Nadja Savchenko, a Ukrainian soldier, who during her time in Russian captivity was elected a deputy to the Ukrainian parliament and then delegated to PACE by it. In my case, Prime Minister Tusk called the immunity “questionable,” and the prosecutor’s office appealed the court’s decision, questioning the scope of protection of the immunity, using similar arguments that the Russian Federation used in the Savchenko case. In this way, Tusk’s Poland has put itself on the same level as Putin’s Russia. The time to question the scope of immunity was when those regulations were being created in the Council of Europe. At that time, Poland supported them. Questioning them now is a violation of international law undertaken for the purposes of political persecution.
This is not the only violation of the law in this case. A member of the court’s management, who decided on my detention, resigned a few days before this decision, stating in a written statement that he was doing so due to political pressure from the Minister of Justice. In the matter of extending the detention of three people held in this case, the judge made a decision in accordance with the prosecutor’s request and was promoted two days later. This was despite the fact that a higher court had previously shortened the detention, and the prosecutor’s office had not presented new evidence. The judge who previously served as deputy minister of justice in Tusk’s government ruled on the arrests. In considering the appeal against the arrest decision concerning me, the judge—who had previously personally attacked me and other right-wing politicians on X—tried to make changes to the adjudicating panel without any legal basis. There are many examples of violations of the law and other actions bearing the signs of political persecution in this case and around it. We are gradually reporting all of them to the ZPRE.
Despite your immunity, the Minister of Justice, the Attorney General, and the team of prosecutors decided to go ahead. Why?
This action, from a legal perspective, seems completely absurd. After all, they knew perfectly well that I was protected by immunity, contrary to what they claim and contrary to the opinions ordered, which were of course written to support a political thesis. I have already filed a notification in this matter to the prosecutor’s office about aiding and abetting unlawful deprivation of liberty, because there can be no consent for academics to serve government lawlessness. At this stage, in accordance with Polish criminal procedure, charges brought against such an absolute obstacle as immunity not being lifted are ineffective. Moreover, not only can one not apply for arrest on their basis again, but they cannot be brought again on the basis of the same circumstances. The only rational justification for the prosecutor’s office’s action, in deliberately and unlawfully detaining me, was the political order to organise a media campaign in the form of leading out a former member of the management of the Ministry of Justice in handcuffs. Minister Zbigniew Ziobro and our entire political environment are not only a symbol of the fight against crime. We have always been the most determined group within the United Right in reforming the state, fighting the ideological madness of gender. This was my main area of activity, consisting of blocking various European gender initiatives wherever nation states retained the right of veto. Finally, the prosecutor’s office aims to strike at the political group that most resolutely defends Poland’s sovereignty against the centralist ambitions of Brussels. I also think that they assumed the reaction of the Chairman of the PACE in a few weeks or months, and in the meantime, they would probably try to force some false explanations from me. In this case, after all, three arrested people were subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment. But it turned out differently.
The PACE chairman intervened the day after your arrest, which forced the court to order your immediate release. How has this been perceived in Poland? And what about the vaunted rule of law?
Yes, it was indeed an immediate reaction. The morning of the day after my arrest, my attorney, Bartosz Lewandowski, wrote a letter to the Chairman of the PACE, and in the evening there was an intervention to the Polish Speaker of the Sejm with a request to release me due to the protection of international immunity. The court initially scheduled a hearing to decide on the prosecutor’s motion for arrest for the following morning. Information about the official position of the Chairman of the PACE, forwarded to the court, resulted in the scheduling of a hearing that same day—or rather, night. I was already asleep when the guard entered my cell and informed me that he had two pieces of information: that it was 11:00 p.m., and that they were coming for me. I had expected a different course of events. However, I was taken to court without handcuffs, and, after a short hearing, the court ordered my immediate release. The hearing ended at 11:59 p.m. There were a lot of media representatives around the courthouse, although the pro-government ones quickly disappeared. The prosecutor and officers also sneaked away, fearing the media. Of course, if something like this had happened under the United Right, we would have had a row all over Europe and the world, including the reaction of the European Commission and the European Parliament, and outrage at the ‘right-wing autocracy’ in all the leading world media. In my case, apart from the obvious formal reaction of the Council of Europe, no one even stuttered. But there was a certain breakthrough in Polish society: some people supporting the ruling camp began to have doubts about the methods they were using. And on the conservative side, apathy disappeared. Many people realised that they cannot be afraid, that they have to unite and oppose violence on the part of the rulers, who are not as professional and omnipotent as they try to present themselves.
We have seen the closure of TVP, the arrest of MPs Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik, and now your case. What is happening in Poland?
Since 13 December 2023, we have been dealing with the construction of a lawless state. The left-liberal questioning of democratic decisions of the parliament and individual institutions, in particular the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Court, and the National Council of the Judiciary, was already taking place when they were in opposition during the rule of the United Right. Now, thanks to their taking power, they have moved from words to actions. However, lacking a sufficient majority to overturn the president’s veto when adopting laws, they govern using parliamentary resolutions or private legal opinions. Unable to change the composition of the Constitutional Tribunal, they simply ignore its rulings. Chaos and lawlessness are an adequate description of the current reality. Recently, there has been an attempt to practically eliminate the largest opposition party, Law and Justice. Without any legal basis, the State Electoral Commission, in which the government has a majority, deprived Law and Justice of subsidies due under the law. The decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court, but the government has already announced that it will not recognise their ruling unless it goes their way, which is practically impossible, because the decision is clearly illegal. Eight years of the United Right’s rule in Poland have shown that a fundamental change and departure from the left-liberal paradigm is possible.
Destroying Christianity, advancing the gender agenda, destroying national identity, and building a European Leviathan is not, after all, an ‘historical necessity.’ Although it has not been done entirely consistently, we have shown that it is possible to build strong national corporations, that large infrastructure projects are possible (such as the currently suspended construction of the largest transport hub in Central Europe), and it is finally possible to escape the trap of average development. During our rule, Poland ceased to be a sales market and a reservoir of cheap labour, all while developing national identity. During our rule, the prosecutor’s office dealt with numerous multi-million-dollar corruption cases in which charges were brought against Donald Tusk’s closest associates. We have shown that ordinary Poles can be real hosts in their homeland. All of this terrifies and angers those left-liberal circles who believe that the country between the Oder and the Bug is their property. Now, with their unlawful actions, they want to prevent at all costs the return to power of a truly conservative camp in the future, so that no one will ever again threaten their interests and their ideology. At most, they will permit a ‘licensed’ right wing. This is a serious threat, but we will face it and win. However, the greatest threat results are that these people have gone so far into lawlessness that losing power practically means a long prison sentence for them. That is why they will do everything not to give up this power. Nevertheless, Poland is a nation attached to freedom like no other, and we are able to defend it without violence and bloodshed.
