Court revokes prosecutor's decision and orders to launch inquiry into alleged pressuring of NIK auditors

In July 2020, Onet published a letter by the Supreme Audit Office's Public Administration Department chief Bogdan Skwarka addressed to the NIK Vice-President Tadeusz Dziuba, in which he accused him of trying to manipulate the results of a inquiry into PiS MEP Beata Kempa's activities between 2017-2019, when she had served as humanitarian aid minister. Dziuba, as NIK vice-president and Kempa's former colleague from PiS parliamentary group, is said to have been pressuring auditors to change the general overtone of their finding.

The NIK chief Marian Banaś decided to take Dziuba off supervising audits and notified the prosecutor's office, which in turn refused to launch an inquiry. Banaś appealed against the prosecutor's office decision to the court.

According to a court order from July 5, 2021, seen by tvn24.pl, the judge found the decision not to launch an inquiry premature.

"The evidence gathered in the case so far, especially evidence in documents, suggest a legitimate suspicion of crime," a Warsaw court said.

According to the judge, the prosecutor should have questioned Tadeusz Dziuba, who, according to the information included in the notification, is said to have overstepped authority".

Furthermore, the court argued that actions of NIK vice-president described in the case files, "aimed at exerting pressure, coercion, or attempts to threaten auditors in order to manipulate control results should have been thoroughly and incisively verified".

After examining the case files, the judge also argued that the prosecutor's office should have also questioned the other Vice-President of NIK Małgorzata Motylow, "who is believedto have been present during Tadeusz Dziuba's discussion with the auditors".

In case of another refusal by the prosecutor's office to launch an inquiry, the court's decision - favourable to the NIK chief - allows him to submit a so-called subsidiary indictment as a plaintiff.

The accusation against Tadeusz Dziuba from summer 2020 resulted in his two-month suspension from duty as vice-president and taking him off supervising all audits. According to "Rzeczpospolita", in his statement for the Speaker of the Sejm Elżbieta Witek, Dziuba defended his refusal to approve a draft version of the report, arguing it contained unreliable and false theses.

Marian Banaś then asked the Sejm Speaker to remove Dziuba from office, but his request was later rejected by the lower house committee on state control affairs. In September 2020, Banaś allowed Dziuba to return to work, but did not rescind notification against from the prosecutor's office.

We asked the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw about July's decision by the court. Its spokesperson Aleksandra Skrzyniarz told us that the prosecutor's office has registered the said case.

Tadeusz Dziuba did not answer our phone call, nor did he reply to our message in which we asked for comment.