The parliamentary group of Poland’s former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, currently in the opposition, has lodged a formal complaint with the prosecutor’s office against Justice Minister Adam Bodnar. The PiS caucus, led by Mariusz Blaszczak, accused Bodnar of committing a criminal act in his recent overhaul of the prosecutorial system.
The controversy centers on a series of appointments and dismissals executed by Bodnar, who also serves as the prosecutor general. Opponents’ criticism has intensified following these changes, with accusations that the prosecutorial system became politically biased.
A key point of contention is the dismissal of Dariusz Barski as national prosecutor on January 12. Bodnar says Barski’s initial appointment by the previous PiS-led government was “illegitimate.” Further, on January 17, Bodnar placed three prosecutor general deputies on leave and earlier reassigned 144 prosecutors, including 94 from the National Prosecutor’s Office.
On January 4, Bodnar reinstated six prosecutors demoted by the PiS government in 2016 to roles in the National Prosecutor’s Office. Barski, in response, issued a statement, signaling his non-recognition of the dismissal.
At a press conference on Monday, Mariusz Blaszczak and Marcin Warchol, a member of PiS’s ally Sovereign Poland, announced the filing of a notification against Bodnar for suspected illegal actions. Blaszczak accused Bodnar, who served as National Ombudsman from 2015 to 2021, of serious violations of Polish law by appointing prosecutors contrary to existing regulations. He argued that these actions were a devastation of the justice system in Poland.
The PiS group has also initiated a motion of no confidence against Bodnar in the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament.