Self-control, or caste checks the caste

Ewa Siedlecka, the ‘Polityka’ weekly

22 August 2019

We already have eleven names of troll judges associated with the ‘Law and Justice’ authorities, who, under the leadership of the former Deputy Minister of Justice Łukasz Piebiak, participated in the stalking of judges opposed to ‘Law and Justice’ judicial reforms. Meanwhile, the prosecutor’s office (Accidentally? I don’t think so) blocked the possibility of securing evidence. As in the Financial Supervision Commission scandal Marek Chrzanowski, so the participants of the „troll farm” have time to agree on testimonies and clean all devices through which they communicated. The prosecutor’s office initiated the „explanatory proceedings”, and in such proceedings no action can be performed other than interrogating the person making the notification about a crime. According to the law, such an investigation may last 30 up to days, but in the case of the Gerard Birgfellner v. Jarosław Kaczyński, it has been going on with impunity for over half a year.

The Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro on Television ‘Trwam’ announced: – When in the future I am informed that any of the judges from any side could participate in this kind of procedure, I will always act in the same firm way. I will dismiss from the Ministry of Justice, initiate disciplinary proceedings and, if there are indications for that, I will institute criminal proceedings.

The fact that the minister initiated criminal proceedings is not a slip of the tongue. He, in fact, as the Attorney General, by his own law on the Prosecutor’s Office, granted himself the right to institute and conduct investigations. In this case – investigations in his own case, because negligence in the Ministry of Justice, in particular regarding the leakage of documents from the personal files of judges, will fall on his head.

The problem of responding to the scandal associated with the „troll farm” is also faced by PiS politician acting as the President of the Office for Personal Data Protection (UODO), Jan Nowak. His Bureau issued a communique announcing that „In connection with suspected irregularities in the processing of personal data”, the President of UODO will examine whether „the Ministry of Justice and the National Council of the Judiciary could collect and process personal data of an unspecified group of judges, as well as their families and relatives and make them available to third parties. „

This formulation of the task shows that no irregularities will be identified. Personal data of judges can be possessed and processed by the Ministry. And the data „about families” that were passed on to hate Emi obviously did not come from the files, but from gossip. In this case, there is no role for UODO, the transfer of data by ministry officials, as well as the activities of the entire group „Kasta” and „KastaWatch” should be investigated by the prosecutor’s office. At most, UODO can be consulted as an expert: whether the data provided is personal data.

So the opinion of UODO, which will probably show that the ministry did not process any data that it would not be allowed to process, is needed for TVP (the bigget state owned tv channel) to be able to state: „There have not been confirmed reports of some mainstream media, allegedly ….”

Today, the neo National Council of the Judiciary presidium took a principled attitude – neo NCJ members and employees were also to operate in the „troll farm”: Dariusz Drajewicz, Jarosław Dudzicz and Maciej Nawacki, as well as judge Tomasz Szmydt, an employee of the NCJ Office.

The Presidium of the National Council of the Judiciary (of which Dariusz Drajewicz was a member) gathered at an extraordinary meeting and adopted a resolution in which it writes that such „action of insinuation and accusation against other judges” „deserves the highest condemnation and violates the dignity of the office of a judge, justifying doubts as to impeccability the nature of the persons involved – a characteristic which every judge should have. „

He further calls for the case of disciplinary commissioner to be dealt with, and for the judges themselves mentioned as participants in this defamation action to be heard in writing.

We’ll see what comes out of it. The disciplinary commissioner is subordinated to the minister-prosecutor Ziobro. And his two deputies: Przemysław Radzik and Michał Lasota, active in the field of prosecution of judges, e.g. for lessons on the constitution or criticisms of changes in the framework of the judicial „reform”, are members of the „Kasta” and „KastaWatch” groups. Today, spokesman Piotr Schab announced that he had initiated the investigation under the account of the abuse of social media by judges (the words deemed uncensored were used).

Meanwhile, a new thread appears in the case. The head of the Association of prosecutors lex Super Omnia states under the name that in November 2017 he heard from a reliable source in the ministry itself that the „youth” working in the ministry were given an informal order to hate specific judges on the internet and – as a layette for discreet communication – they got prepaid phones registered with the ministry, and thus allowing. It was then that the word „troll farm” was to be created in the ministry.

The situation is developing and new information will probably leak out. There is no independent body that can examine them impartially. The case will probably remain at the stage of journalistic reports and two heads that have flown: dismissed from the delegation to the ministry of judge Jakub Iwaniec and dismissed judge Łukasz Piebiak, called by the „Caste” the „leader”. Piebiak, however, will continue to work out at the ministry, and has the chance to clear the field of evidence and instruct other employees.

Below the link to the original publication in Polish.

https://siedlecka.blog.polityka.pl/2019/08/22/autokontrola-czyli-kasta-sprawdza-kaste/