In my life, I’ve seen all sorts of fools, but the ones that disgusted me the most were the inflatable figures—ever ready to serve anyone who could pump air into their grotesque balloons. The most disgraceful bunch of all were those self-important figures from the legal world.
Even back in the days of the late Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), I encountered more than enough of them. Each one worse than the last—emanating a peculiar stench of mustiness mixed with arrogance and a foul eagerness to serve the influential and powerful. The prototype of these twisted characters was a certain Professor Buchała. The much-missed and courageous Professor Władysław Mącior used to start his lectures by writing two words on the blackboard: Buc and chała (a play on Buchała’s name, translating roughly as “boor” and “flop”), which always drew peals of laughter from students and fury from the likes of Ćwiąkalski and other academic servants of the communist party.
This is how, in the Third Republic of Poland, the glory of party-sanctioned “authorities” on law and its interpretation flourished. Alongside them were the so-called nonpartisan acolytes—like Professor Andrzej Zoll, who nearly had a stroke when he learned that his son Fryderyk had associated with the Centre Agreement political group. He immediately pulled his son out of those “undesirable” circles.
Add to this post-communist figure Andrzej Rzepliński, General Jaruzelski’s favorite Ewa Łętowska, or Małgorzata Gersdorf—blind to reality and enamored with Aleksander Kwaśniewski—and you have a near-complete picture of the “legal elite.” They provide endless fodder for the psychiatric performances of attorney Roman Giertych. Throw in PRL-era lawyer Wojciech Hermeliński and EU judge Marek Safjan, and you’ve got a full lineup of names who, whenever needed, will “sing” whatever tune Michnik and his friends require.
This “wish list” has been running since the early days of the Kiszczak-era Third Republic. Every scam the Warsaw salons wish to pull off receives instant, pompous justification from these so-called “authorities.” If courtroom furniture squeaked every time injustice was done in Polish courts, a deafening, unbearable noise would hang over the temples of justice across the country. And if the good Lord made it so that lawyers lost their voices for even a day every time they lied or acted unjustly, we’d have silent courts and prosecutors’ offices from coast to coast.
When we add the legal competence (or lack thereof) of Attorney General Adam Bodnar to the mix, it brings involuntary embarrassment to any moderately educated citizen. Worse still, this fanatically obsessive figure once held the position of Ombudsman in our country. If the institutions responsible for upholding the law have ended up in such hands, is it any wonder that every clownish and idiotic act of Giertych finds immediate justification from the mouths of servile professors?
The tradition of signing collective protests and open letters dates back to the communist era, but today it carries only marginal importance. Still, it serves to maintain readiness among the circles that fancy themselves an “elite”—though in truth, they are mere remnants of a system where communists and their obedient lapdogs were supposed to be the spiritual leaders of Polish society. This tradition has thoroughly gone to the dogs. Once, such letters were signed by comrade Szymborska and her whole clique of self-appointed intellectuals, snobs, and opportunists. Now, we’re left with the die-hard comrades from Kwaśniewski’s circle—some Frasyniuks, Kurdej-Szatans, and the remnants of Michnik’s circus. It’s all increasingly comical and could be written off as a farce—if only it weren’t so damaging to Polish independence and the state’s structures.