The National Prosecutor’s Office discontinued the investigation into alleged abuse of power by prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek, but she has nevertheless appealed the decision, the portal Niezalezna.pl has learned. She is seeking a ruling that no prohibited act was committed. The case files have already been submitted to the District Court in Warsaw’s Mokotów district. The high-profile case will be adjudicated by Judge Ewa Bałan-Gonciarz.
At the end of December, the National Prosecutor’s Office announced the discontinuation of the investigation into prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek’s alleged overstepping of her authority. The case concerns a widely discussed initiative involving the submission of motions to courts across Poland aimed at blocking changes in public media.
In its statement, the Prosecutor’s Office acknowledged that although Wrzosek’s actions did constitute an overreach of authority, the decision was made to discontinue the proceedings on the grounds that “the social harm of the act is negligible.”
The portal Niezalezna.pl was the first to reveal who signed the decision to discontinue the case.
“Prosecutor Juliusz Rudak, the case officer in the proceedings concerning prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek, prepared a motion to the Supreme Court to lift her immunity. This indicates that he intended to bring charges against her. However, the motion was blocked by his superior, Dariusz Makowski, head of the Internal Affairs Department of the National Prosecutor’s Office. Subsequently, Makowski personally issued the decision to discontinue the proceedings,” we reported in January.
Three months have passed, and the case has not been conclusively resolved. On the contrary, further developments are expected. As Niezalezna.pl has established, the decision has been appealed by the legal representative of… prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek herself.
The appeal alleges violations of both procedural and substantive law, arguing that the act was first classified as a prohibited act and then discontinued due to its negligible social harm. According to the appellant, no prohibited act was committed, and the grounds for discontinuation should have been based on Article 17 § 1(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (absence of elements of a prohibited act),” prosecutor Katarzyna Calów-Jaszewska from the National Prosecutor’s Office told us today.
She added that “the appeal, along with the case files, has been forwarded to the District Court for Warsaw-Mokotów, and as of now no hearing date has been set and no case reference number has been assigned.”
However, when we contacted the Mokotów court, it turned out that the case was received on March 5 this year and has already been assigned a case number. It has been allocated to the docket of Judge Ewa Bałan-Gonciarz.