Former head of Poland’s National Security Bureau, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, criticized President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to appoint Zbigniew Kapiński as the First President of the Supreme Court. In an extensive post on X, the historian argued that the court panel including Kapiński had evidence in 2000 proving that Lech Wałęsa had been an agent of the communist-era Security Service (SB) under the codename “Bolek.” Despite this, the court “cleared” the former president.
President Karol Nawrocki appointed judge Zbigniew Kapiński on Monday as the new First President of the Supreme Court, presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz announced, confirming earlier reports by Telewizja Republika. Kapiński will replace Małgorzata Manowska, whose term expires on May 26.
The president’s decision has sparked controversy because Kapiński took part in the 2000 court proceedings that critics describe as a judicial farce aimed at “clearing” Lech Wałęsa. Leśkiewicz, however, stated that the court at the time did not possess sufficient evidence to confirm the allegations.
The appointment was sharply criticized on X by former National Security Bureau chief Sławomir Cenckiewicz.
“Karol Nawrocki, you made a terrible mistake, and even whoever persuaded you to make it, and however they did so, does not justify this mistake,” he wrote.
“The justification you gave for this bad decision regarding the appointment of judge Kapiński as First President of the Supreme Court — and which you additionally put into the mouth of former IPN employee Rafał Leśkiewicz, who knows the Wałęsa case better than almost anyone — is a colossal lie,” he addressed the president.
According to Cenckiewicz, “the 2000 court proceedings and what the judicial panel, including judge Zbigniew Kapiński, did with the evidence concerning Wałęsa’s alleged collaborationist past constituted a violation of the law — later explained by judge Kauba — and a breach of every principle of judicial integrity.”
“The court had evidence in 2000 to recognize Wałęsa as an agent. It also possessed the full prosecutorial case file showing the role played by the lustrated Wałęsa and one of his key witnesses in the lustration trial, Gromosław Czempiński, in the theft of ‘Bolek’ documents in the years 1992–94, but concealed it despite protests from deputy Public Interest Commissioner judge Kauba! And then the court lied repeatedly in the justification of the August 11, 2000 ruling,” he wrote on social media.
In the post, he quoted what he described as a “judicial lie” contained in the ruling:
“Lech Wałęsa submitted a truthful lustration statement. Moreover, based on the entirety of the operational, archival and other documents gathered in the case (Article 31 of the Act), it can be concluded with a probability bordering on certainty that there never existed original documents confirming that Lech Wałęsa was a secret collaborator of the former communist Security Service of the People’s Republic of Poland.”
“There was no dissenting opinion from judge Kapiński against this deceitful nonsense. Instead, there was full knowledge at the time and determination to save Wałęsa from the ‘Bolek’ label and from accusations that he had removed evidence in his own case. To claim today that nothing happened back then and that Poland in 2026 must have as the ‘first judge’ of the Republic someone who participated in such falsehoods as Kapiński is simply disgraceful and very harmful for Poland,” the former BBN chief stated.
Cenckiewicz added that he was speaking publicly about the matter “because the decision of the President of the Republic of Poland is public, the lie accompanying it is public and must be condemned, and the Wałęsa case and his judicial accomplices are as public as they are ‘mine.’”