Stanisław Piotrowicz, a man that has become one of the faces of Law and Justice’s judicial revolution played a more important role in the communist judiciary than he admits, as claimed by those who worked with him back then. They talk about his career in the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) and at the prosecutor’s office. This career, contrary to what Piotrowicz himself declares, did not end at the time of martial law, about the introduction of which, by the way, he had no objections back then. Material of the “Czarno na białym” show.
In Krosno, the 1980s. and martial law are still a hotly debated topic, because of Stanisław Piotrowicz. In an interview with TVN24 reporter, Piotr Świerczek, people who used to work with Piotrowicz talked about his career in PZPR and at the prosecutor’s office. However, he himself writes a different story. The reporter of “Czarno na białym” show checked what things were really like.
Violently suppressed protests in the streets of Radom and Ursus in June 1976. The young, 24-year old law student Stanisław Piotrowicz was not involved in the opposition. Back then he was a member of the Socialist Union of Polish Students (SZSP) and right after the demonstrations he went on a trip to the Soviet Union.
Passport documents reveal that in mid-1981, right before martial law, with the approval of secret police, he went to France, which was most probably made easier by his party membership. More than 30 years later, Piotrowicz said he had been forced to join PZPR.
One of the three members of the executive
The reporter of “Czarno na białym” found documents from the state archives in Sanok. These are minutes of the election to top positions in the executive board of the Party at a local prosecutor’s office, i.e. party executive, in 1981, where we can read that: “election of the members of the Primary Party Organisation executive (…) four people obtained the required majority of votes...”.
These included Stanisław Piotrowicz, with a substantial support. The election ended in a tie. “There was a need to hold a second round of election...” – the minutes indicate.
With 10 votes in favor, Stanisław Piotrowicz became one of the three members of the executive. – He had to be first everywhere – recalls the then manager of the secretariat, Helena Kasprzyk, who worked 38 years at the prosecutor’s office in Krosno.
In 1986, the executive at the prosecutor’s office in Krosno wrote a public appeal. “Comrades! The most important long-term objective is to shape – based on the knowledge of Marxism and Leninism – the ideological views of members and candidates (...)”.
“Quick promotion”
Andrzej Kachlik, former oppositionist and member of Solidarity from Jasło was, back then, on the other side of the barricade. He would print and distribute leaflets, fighting for free Poland.
“Who was Mr. Piotrowicz? In the year 1980 he was a 27-years old junior prosecutor. A quick promotion, which is due to some political merits rather than just work-related ones,” he said.
Andrzej Kachlik takes us back to 1980, to the events taking place in the building that used to house, on the top floor, both the Provincial and the District Prosecutor’s office in Krosno, in one corridor. Currently, it’s a court. Stanisław Piotrowicz was transferred here at his own request from the prosecutor’s office in Dębica. He was quickly promoted from assistant prosecutor to deputy prosecutor and from the district prosecutor’s office he was delegated to provincial prosecutor’s office. He didn’t even change the room, only the type of cases handled, and “delegation” became the keyword.
“Martial law found me at the provincial prosecutor’s office. When I refused to hold investigations of political nature, I was sent one floor below, to the district prosecutor’s office,” Stanisław Piotrowicz said at one of press conferences.
“Mr. Piotrowicz is playing a martyr who was demoted. This is all baloney, it’s not at all true so it vexes me terribly how you can lie like that to people?” that’s how these words were commented by Helena Kasprzyk. “His position remained the same”
Mr. Karol Heliński, the defense counsel for many oppositionists in the Sub-Carpathian region, also doubts the heroic attitude of prosecutor Piotrowicz. “His position remained the same. He was a district prosecutor delegated to work at the provincial prosecutor’s office, but he was never appointed provincial prosecutor,” he said in an interview with TVN24 reporter.
Martial law was introduced on 13 December, and the personnel file reveals that until the end of December Stanisław Piotrowicz investigated business cases at the provincial prosecutor’s office.
He started working at the district prosecutor’s office on 1 January 1982, which contradicts the theory of “refusal to hold investigations” of political nature and being transferred “overnight” – which are claims Piotrowicz made for the purpose of his first electoral campaign in 2005.
“I was, at the prosecutor’s office in Krosno, the only person to quit the job due to the introduction of martial law, while the other prosecutors stayed; some of them are my close colleagues, after all,” said Andrzej Podstawski, a district prosecutor in Krosno in December 1981.
Everybody in Krosno knows the story of Andrzej Podstawski. It was also described in the information regarding the activities of prosecuting staff in Krosno province in the first weeks of martial law. “It must be emphasized that the prosecuting staff composed, at the time of introduction of martial law, of 43 prosecutors and articled clerks, essentially as a whole received martial law introduction with due understanding as a necessity,” we can read there.
“I highly disapprove of it”
The prosecutor who stood up against it was Andrzej Podstawski. Stanisław Piotrowicz, like most prosecutors, made no objections about martial law. He stayed at the communist prosecutor’s office, and in free Poland he became part of public life.
“I highly disapprove of it. The people who undertook such activity, if they face today such a strong protest against the activity they carry out, should not be surprised,” declared Podstawski in an interview with TVN24.
On the recent martial law anniversary, a protest was organized outside the office of Stanisław Piotrowicz in Krosno. Opinions were voiced that Piotrowicz is trying to “whitewash” his past. He signed the indictment of the oppositionist Antoni Pikul, and then for a long time he was denying this signature. “My name is not there at all,” he would argue in a speech at the Sejm.
“Absolutely false”
Not only didn’t Piotrowicz bear any political consequences of the issue, but he also built for himself an image of a hero within Law and Justice, claiming that in the communist times, he helped oppositionists. “That’s false. Absolutely false,” declared Antoni Pikul himself. “Because Mr. Piotrowicz did not help either me or any other people involved in Solidarity underground activity at that time.”
Piotrowicz defended himself saying that in the case of the oppositionist Antoni Pikul he deliberately drafted the minutes of suspect reviewing the case file in an inaccurate manner to cause the court to send the case back to the prosecutor’s office. However, he failed to add that in the indictment made several days later, which he signed, a clear thesis was put forward. “It is also beyond dispute that Antoni Pikul collected the above-mentioned leaflets and publications for the purpose of distributing them further. The findings allow assuming beyond any doubt that Antoni Pikul (...) committed the crime (...),” we can read in the document.
When he finally admitted that the indictment bears his name, he started to explain: “I signed because I knew it would be ineffective. It was not effective. Since the prosecutor’s office and my superiors pushed for indictment, I knew this was the only way for the court to send it back to the prosecutor’s office. And the court did it”.
“He should have discontinued the investigation”
The case indeed was sent back by a civilian court, but after a while it was heard by a military court anyway. When asked by “Czarno na białym” journalist what Piotrowicz would have done if he had really wanted to help the oppositionist, Andrzej Kachlik replied: “He should have discontinued the investigation. File no indictment.”
This is also the opinion of Karol Heliński, the defense counsel for oppositionists in the Sub-Carpathian region. “His help could have consisted in not filing the indictment,” he declared.
“You need to know the realities of that time”
However, Stanisław Piotrowicz is building quite a different narrative. For example he claims he was not active in the Party, although after martial law he was awarded a Bronze Cross of Merit. In the document we can read that “he is a diligent and disciplined employee”, but the statement of reasons of 1984 provides further details: “(...) he participates in the works of the party organization and in the works council, for example by holding the function of party training manager and social labor inspector.” “You need to know the realities of that time,” that’s how Piotrowicz today explains why he accepted that distinction.
Źródło: tvn24.pl/tłumaczenie Intertext.com.pl