The hearing of Sejm Speaker Szymon Hołownia in connection with his remarks about a coup d’état has been scheduled for the first half of October, Piotr Skiba, spokesperson for the Warsaw District Prosecutor’s Office, told Niezalezna.pl. There will be no separate proceedings. The matter has been joined with the investigation into the alleged coup d’état, initiated following a complaint filed by the President of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Initially, Hołownia was supposed to be questioned before Karol Nawrocki was sworn in as President at the beginning of August. Those plans fell through because the Speaker of the Sejm went on vacation.
A distant date
Eventually, the prosecutors managed to reach an agreement with the Speaker. The result? A very distant hearing date.
“The hearing of the Speaker of the Sejm has been scheduled for the first half of October. The request for his questioning was ultimately added to the so-called coup d’état case, initiated upon notification by the President of the Constitutional Tribunal. In this matter, procedural steps have already been scheduled through the end of December 2025. Witness hearings are ongoing,” prosecutor Skiba told Niezalezna.pl.
Hołownia’s explanations
Hołownia claims that he used the phrase “coup d’état” not in a legal sense, but as a form of “political diagnosis.” Earlier, speaking on Polsat News, he said that he had repeatedly been urged to delay Karol Nawrocki’s swearing-in as President of Poland and thereby carry out a “coup d’état.” When asked who made such proposals, he mentioned people who “did not like the outcome of the presidential election.”
In February, the President of the Constitutional Tribunal, Bogdan Święczkowski, filed a notification of suspected coup d’état, naming among others Donald Tusk, ministers, ruling coalition politicians, and some lawyers. According to the President of the Tribunal, the alleged crime consisted of these individuals acting “in an organized criminal group” since December 13, 2023, with the aim of “changing the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland and acting to either block or terminate the functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal and other constitutional bodies, including the National Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Court.”
The investigation was initiated by prosecutor Michał Ostrowski. The case was then transferred to the Warsaw District Prosecutor’s Office, where it was assigned to Deputy District Prosecutor Małgorzata Szeroczyńska.