Poland’s public prosecution service, controlled by the centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has requested the lifting of European parliamentary immunity of former junior justice minister and current opposition Law and Justice (PiS) MEP Patryk Jaki and has signalled that it wants to detain him to prevent him “from attempting to pervert the course of justice”.
Prosecutors say the case concerns suspected abuse of authority while Jaki was deputy justice minister under the previous PiS government, responsible for oversight of the prison service.
Jaki is accused of abusing his powers when he rapidly promoted an officer within the country’s prison service, allegedly in violation of regulations governing such appointments.
According to the prosecution spokesperson Anna Adamiak, investigators have gathered evidence suggesting the promotion took place while disciplinary proceedings were ongoing against the officer, resulting in financial and career benefits.
The prosecutors allege the role was recreated specifically for the officer to provide him with higher pay and a guaranteed return to this or an equivalent position after secondment.
Justice minister Waldemar Żurek, who is also prosecutor general and submitted the request, on announcing the move did not specify in what way Jaki could pervert the course of justice if he remained free to answer the charges being made against him.
Jaki has denied wrongdoing, writing on social media that the case amounts to “a mockery of the state” and accusing the authorities of political persecution.
The MEP wrote on X: “A government that doesn’t know how to govern mocks itself with motions like this to persecute its competition.”
He has also said that “if I can be prosecuted for granting a promotion to an officer [then] any minister can be prosecuted for any appointment they make”.
Jaki also accused the prosecutors of misleading the public over the status of the officer in question, saying the officer had been cleared of the disciplinary charges against him and that it was therefore inappropriate for the prosecutors to mention them in such a way that the public felt they were still ongoing.
The European Parliament must now decide whether to lift his immunity before any criminal proceedings can move forward.
The lifting of parliamentary immunity does not determine guilt or innocence, but it removes procedural protections that previously shielded lawmakers from national prosecution, allowing domestic courts to proceed with investigations.
The request comes amid a broader raft of indictments pursued by the Tusk government against figures from the previous PiS government and other opposition politicians.
In a separate development, the European Parliament on April 28, 2026 voted to waive immunity for four Polish lawmakers, including Jaki, Daniel Obajtek, a PiS MEP and former head of the state-controlled oil company Orlen, and other right-wing MEPs, Grzegorz Braun and Tomasz Buczek.
Earlier it had also voted to strip former government minister Michał Dworczyk MEP of the PiS of immunity to face charges of illegal use of his email accounts which were hacked while containing confidential government documents, as well as ex-interior ministers Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik who are being prosecuted for allegedly illegally participating in a session of the Polish parliament after having been convicted of a criminal offence.
The Tusk government has accused the previous PiS administration of undermining judicial independence and weakening democratic checks and balances during its time in power, arguing that ongoing investigations are part of efforts to restore the rule of law.
PiS rejects these claims, saying the current authorities are using the justice system to target political opponents.
The opposition has accused the Tusk government of using pre-trial detention as a means of harassment of former officials and attempts to extract confessions from civil servants and NGO leaders who worked with or for the last PiS administration (2015-2023).
The European Commission’s rule of law reports on Poland have in the past criticised the use of pre-trial detention in Poland as being punitive and unjustified.
The Polish ombudsman Marcin Wiącek in 2024 criticised the detention of Father Michał Olszewski who was held in pre-trial detention from March to October that year, in conditions which the ombudsman condemned as a potential denial of human rights. The priest was paraded in handcuffs in a public place during his arrest, denied water and food in the first hours of detention and allegedly had his sleep patterns disrupted during the night. W
It was the treatment handed out to Olszewski and two female civil servants from the justice ministry who were detained for months, with one being the mother of a child with special needs, which led both the former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who is recovering from cancer of the oesophagus, and his deputy Marcin Romanowski to seek refuge first in Hungary and then the US rather than face prolonged pre-trial detention.
The two are facing charges of allegedly illegally spending funds on political causes and purchasing the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware that was used on some of the then members of the opposition.
Former PiS PM Mateusz Morawiecki is also facing an indictment of allegedly illegally authorising spending on preparations for a postal vote in the 2020 presidential election held during the Covid pandemic, and so is former defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak, facing the charge of revealing state secrets when he informed the public about the fact that a previous Tusk government (2007-2015) had planned to defend Poland against Russia on the line of the Vistula rather than on the eastern border.
In neither of these two cases, though, have the authorities thus far sought to place the former government officials in pre-trial detention.
None of the PiS politicians facing indictments are accused of having personally benefitted financially from the alleged abuses of power but of seeking to benefit their political party by steering funds to friendly NGOs and municipalities.
By contrast, Sławomir Nowak, former transport minister in a previous Tusk government, was put in pre-trial detention on suspicion of having benefitted from a protection racket and having taken bribes. Despite evidence, in the shape of large amounts of cash being hidden in the walls of Nowak’s house, the ex-minister was released from detention and has had some of the charges he is facing dropped after Tusk came to office.
In another case Tusk’s family lawyer, Roman Giertych MP, had charges against him dropped for alleged money laundering on behalf of his clients, with some Polish journalists claiming that the prosecutors failed to question key witnesses in the case. No attempt was made to lift Giertych’s parliamentary immunity by the Tusk majority that has been systematically approving all prosecution requests for the waiving of immunity of PiS politicians and all requests for their pre-trial detention.
