A Warsaw court has rejected a request by a parliamentary committee investigating the use of Pegasus spyware by the former Conservative (PiS) government to detain former PiS justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro for 30 days for allegedly defying orders to appear at its hearing.
Ziobro and his party have hailed the ruling of March 31 as vindicating their view that the parliamentary commission was acting unlawfully in pursuit of the opponents of the centre-left Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The former PiS justice minister told independent Conservative broadcaster TV Republika that the parliamentary committee that attempted to have him imprisoned was “acting on orders from the capo, Donald Tusk”.
“They tricked the court into issuing an order for my detention and forced appearance before this illegal commission. And then, when they actually had the opportunity to carry out the procedure they had requested, they failed to do so. Instead, they chose to continue their political spectacle, setting a trap to get me arrested,” he claimed.
In January, a court authorised police to forcibly bring Ziobro to testify at a hearing of the Pegasus committee to give testimony to the Pegasus committee.
Ziobro had refused summonses to appear before the committee, first on account of him undergoing treatment for cancer and then because of a Constitutional Tribunal, or court, verdict that the way the committee had been set up was unconstitutional.
That court was viewed as illegitimate by the Polish Government because of alleged irregularities in the election of three of 15 court justices during the lifetime of the previous PiS government, hence the Tusk administration did not recognise any of its rulings.
On the morning of the date of the committee’s hearing of January 31, the police found Ziobro being interviewed by TV Republika. He did not resist officers taking him to parliament but the committee chose to interpret his late arrival as an affront, closed the session and filed for Ziobro to be arrested and held for 30 days for defying their orders.
On March 31, the district court in Warsaw rejected that request stating “the commission had no legal basis” to seek Ziobro’s detention. That, it said, was because evidence given by the police indicated that the commission could have heard Ziobro’s testimony but decided to “withdraw from it of its own free will”.
On the day of the committee’s hearing, Przemysław Wipler, an opposition member of the commission from the Confederation party, told reporters that the commission was aware Ziobro was already in parliament accompanied by police when it decided to request his 30-day detention.
Ziobro has on social media shared an extract from a police submission to the court that showed that officers had been informed by its chair, Magdalena Sroka, that if they were unable to bring Ziobro to his hearing by 10:30am, the commission could wait for him until 12 noon.
The committee announced it would be appealing the Warsaw court’s ruling and accused Ziobro of resisting attending its hearings.
The former PiS government purchased Pegasus, a surveillance tool of Israeli origin, for use by the anti-corruption agency (CBA). That spyware was allegedly used against the then centre-left opposition, although in each case of its use a court order had been obtained.
