Poland’s former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who had his parliamentary immunity removed to face 26 criminal charges, has said he will only return to the country “when the rule of law is restored”.
His attorney on November 12 briefed that Ziobro, who is still a sitting Polish MP for the opposition Conservatives (PiS), is ready to be interviewed and presented with charges. That would be either in Hungary, where he is staying, or in Brussels where he has been living with his wife, who is employed in the European Parliament, while undergoing treatment for cancer that was diagnosed in 2023.
“The prosecutor’s office has two foreign addresses for Ziobro,” his lawyer Bartosz Lewandowski told Polish daily Rzeczpospolita on November 11.
“We proposed that he be questioned through the assistance of the consular office, or through international assistance. He can appear at the agreed-upon time and place,” he said.
The fact that Ziobro is willing to be interviewed and disclose his address means it will be much harder for the courts in Poland to order an arrest warrant that could in turn be used to issue a European Arrest Warrant.
“The prosecutor’s office has been informed of his location, so there is no question of him going into hiding, since his life has been centred outside of Poland for a long time,” Lewandowski told the newspaper.
There has so far been no response from prosecutors regarding Ziobro’s proposal, but deputy prime minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said yesterday that questioning of the ex-minister “should take place in Poland, not in a location designated by the person who is to testify”.
Ziobro has been in Budapest since October 27 where he has met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who posted a picture of the pair together. The PM also condemned the “witch hunt” against the Polish Right launched by “the pro-Brusselian Polish Government”.
In an interview with broadcaster Polsat yesterday evening, Ziobro said he would only return to Poland “when the rule of law is restored”. He called Poland’s current government a “criminal gang” and claimed that Prime Minister Donald Tusk is “committing crime after crime”.
Between 2015 and 2023, Ziobro spearheaded the last PiS government’s judicial reforms that were contested by the then-Liberal opposition and European Union institutions such as the European Commission and the European Court of Justice.
Prosecutors want to charge the ex-minister with 26 offences he is alleged to have committed while in office. They include allegedly establishing and leading a criminal group and abusing his powers for personal and political gain. If found guilty, he could face up to 30 years in prison.
Ziobro’s alleged crimes all relate to the management of the Justice Fund, which was intended to be used to support victims of crime and for combating and preventing crime.
He and his allies in the justice ministry are accused of using the fund for political purposes, including the purchase of Pegasus spyware. That was used in detecting crimes but was also, it is alleged, used for surveillance of opposition politicians.
The Polish parliament on November 7 voted to lift Ziobro’s parliamentary immunity as well as for him to be placed in pretrial detention.
Poland has been criticised for the extensive use of pre-trial detention in a way some legal experts feel is a form of punishment or attempt to pressurise suspects into admitting guilt. The European Commission has mentioned those concerns in its rule-of-law reports on Poland.
Ziobro denies any misuse of the Justice Fund and claims prosecutors are now pursuing him on orders of the current government as part of a “political vendetta”.
He argues that the fund was used for legitimate purposes such as increasing the security of local communities through the purchase of fire-fighting equipment, which serves the whole of society.
The current ruling centre-left coalition led by Tusk, which replaced PiS in power in December 2023, has issued a raft of indictments against former PiS officials, including the former PiS PM Mateusz Morawiecki.
One of the former PiS official facing charges is Marcin Romanowski MP who left Poland and claimed asylum in Hungary after his parliamentary immunity was lifted last year.
