Jurors adjudicating in the case of Father Olszewski and the female officials were appointed on January 20, just one day before the trial. This gave them only 24 hours to familiarize themselves with more than 200,000 pages of case files, something that is physically impossible, according to findings by niezalezna.pl.
During the hearing on January 21, Judge Justyna Koska-Janusz stated that she trusts the jurors and that they had submitted declarations confirming they had reviewed the files. As we calculated, in order to do so, the jurors would have had to go through approximately 400 pages of text per minute, with comprehension. Without sleep or breaks.
“In this situation, this adjudicating panel is illusory. This trial cannot continue,”
says defense attorney Krzysztof Wąsowski.
While reviewing the case files, Father Olszewski’s defense counsel came across a decision concerning the appointment of jurors to the case. It was issued by the head of a division of the Warsaw Regional Court, Judge Magdalena Wójcik, the same judge who received a promotion shortly after extending the pre-trial detention of the priest and the female officials in 2024. It turns out that the jurors were appointed by the judge on January 20, just one day before the start of the trial.
“As Judge Koska-Janusz stated during the hearing on January 21, as the presiding judge, she trusts the appointed jurors, and they submitted statements that they had reviewed the files. That is physically impossible within 24 hours,”
says Father Olszewski’s defense attorney, Michał Skwarzyński.
“The files consist of at least 200,000 pages. Even this conservative number is enough to show that the jurors could not possibly have reviewed the files within 24 hours. This means that the composition of this court is defective, illusory, and in such a situation, the trial cannot continue. We will raise this issue at Wednesday’s scheduled hearing,”
says defense attorney for the priest and Ms. Urszula, Krzysztof Wąsowski.
Portal Niezależna.pl calculated that reviewing 200,000 pages of files within a single day would mean that the jurors would have to read and understand 8,333 pages per hour, which equals 138.8 pages per minute, over two pages per second. Without sleep or any break.
The defense attorneys for the priest and the female officials had questioned the preparedness of the jurors from the moment it became clear that the jurors selected by lot a year earlier would not take part in this trial. “Back then, at the beginning of January, we argued that it was impossible to familiarize oneself with such a volume of files within a few days, since it took Judge Koska-Janusz, a professional judge, a year to do so. Now it turns out it was supposedly done in 24 hours. Either we are dealing with a miracle, or the jurors made false statements.”
According to Niezależna.pl, information from inside the court, attorney Wąsowski received the case files by oversight, and phones in Division VIII began ringing with questions about what to do once this information came to light.
“That is now a matter for the court. Without a doubt, such a situation is grounds for invalidating this trial,”
Krzysztof Wąsowski told us.