When I found out about unacceptable behaviour, I immediately drew consequences. In this case, the state reacted as it should - the Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro said on Tuesday, commenting on the internet hate campaign scandal that targeted some judges. The minister said that his reaction was "exemplary".
Ziobro stressed that he was disappointed that "the judicial circles are strongly at logger-heads". "Let me remind that all of those judges in question were members of one organisation, namely (Association of Judges) Iustitia," Ziobro said at a press conference in Mielec. In his opinion, this is a "feud in one judicial family". In the minister's view, such conflicts can be vary emotional. "When strong emotion come to play, the reason falls asleep," he added.
According to reports published by Onet.pl in mid-August, the then deputy justice minister Łukasz Piebiak was in contact through social media with a woman named Emilia, who is said to have led campaigns to discredit some judges, including the chairman of Iustitia, Professor Krystian Markiewicz. Piebiak stepped down as deputy minister shortly after the publications. He is said to have known about the smear campaign.
"This was reprehensible conduct, deserving criticism and swift reaction. State institutions prove themselves in a time of crisis, by the way they handle it. Therefore, the moment I found out about it as justice minister, about conduct I disapprove of do not accept, I immediately drew consequences," Ziobro said.
He added that if someone compared his "reaction as the justice minister to information regarding such issues to reactions of members previous cabinets when scandals broke out, not always their reactions were as quick as now".
He underlined that, in Poland, bigger or smaller scandals did happen to various ruling coalitions. In Ziobro's opinion, compared to former PM Donald Tusk's reaction to e.g. the tape scandal, his reaction was "exemplary".
"The state proved that it existed not just in theory, the state reacted as it should," he underscored. He added, however, that one cannot "naively assume that among thousands of civil servants or ministry employees, all will be angels".
According to Onet.pl, the hate campaign is said to have involved, among others, former deputy justice minister Łukasz Piebiak, KRS members: Maciej Nawacki and Jarosław Dudzicz, Supreme Court justice Konrad Wytrykowski and judge-delegate at the ministry of justice Jakub Iwaniec.
After the scandal broke out, Piebiak stepped down as deputy minister and Iwaniec was recalled from delegation to the ministry. Wytrykowski announced that all information published by Onet.pl were untrue and infringed on his good name and reputation.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: tvn24