by Magdalena Gałczyńska

• Dworczyk discussed future decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal that were to have an impact on the State budget with Przyłębska

• Dworczyk listed these costs in his e-mail to the prime minister, estimating the expenditure from the State’s coffers

• ‘A politician visiting the Constitutional Tribunal? This is absolutely unacceptable practice, but recent years have shown that it is becoming increasingly common,’ Wojciech Hermeliński, retired judge of the Constitutional Tribunal and former head of the State Electoral Committee tells Onet. 

• The head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery did not respond to our requests for contact.

• Julia Przyłębska addressed the whole matter in ‘Trójkowy komentarz dnia’ [Commentary of the day in Radio Three]

• Screenshots from Michał Dworczyk’s private mailbox, as well as those of other politicians and activists associated with the ruling camp, have been appearing since the beginning of June 2021 in the Poufna Rozmowa [Confidential Talk] website.

‘I visited Ms Julia P. today (shortly after your conversation). I discussed 3 topics with the president’ – this is how Michał Dworczyk’s e-mail sent to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on 7 January 2019 starts. The title of the e-mail states that it applies to the ‘CT’. As can be easily guessed, ‘Julia’ is the president of the Constitutional Tribunal, Julia Przyłębska. Dworczyk discussed the tribunal’s forthcoming decisions with her. Specifically, the dates of the hearings and the judges who were most likely to be the rapporteurs or presiding judges of the benches in these cases. And so, in an e-mail to the Prime Minister, Dworczyk listed the subjects discussed with the president of the CT:

1. People born in 53 – deferred for now (Kieres, 250 million – 1.5 billion)

2. Custody benefit deferred for now (Muszyński) until 19 February (approx. 5 billion) 

3. Easements on land for transmission deferred for now (Muszyński) (a dozen or so billion)

What are these cases about? The CT ruling on the people born in 1953 (passed on 6 March 2019, which was several months after the conversation between Dworczyk and Przyłębska mentioned in the e-mail) applied to women born in 1953. The Tribunal declared the mechanism for reducing the basis of the pension without notice as being unconstitutional. It then held that, when deciding to retire early, women did not know that this could affect their retirement benefits.

In the summer of 2020, the senators adopted an amendment to the Act on Pensions from the Social Insurance Fund without making any amendments to the bill. This will allow the benefits of pensioners born in 1953 to be recalculated on a more favourable basis. This meant costs for the state budget. This is probably what the amounts in brackets in Dworczyk’s e-mail to Morawiecki mean.

The other two cases also applied to forthcoming decisions of the CT. These three cases have one thing in common, as we mentioned – the tribunal’s decision in each case involved costs for the State budget.

‘A politician visiting the Constitutional Tribunal? This is absolutely unacceptable practice, but recent years have shown that it is becoming increasingly common,’ Wojciech Hermeliński, retired judge of the Constitutional Tribunal and former head of the State Electoral Committee tells Onet. ‘We have already had, as the media reported, visits from MP Arkadiusz Mularczyk to the CT, and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Mariusz Kamiński, had also been there. This is an unthinkable situation. This would never have happened during Professor Andrzej Rzepliński’s presidency,’ he emphasises. ‘I remember when Professor Rzepliński was president of the Constitutional Tribunal; an MP entered the part of the Tribunal occupied by judges. When the president heard about this, he became extremely annoyed. He immediately ordered the doors to that part of the tribunal to be locked and said that such visits must never take place. It was unthinkable for a politician to show up in the section of the CT assigned for judges,’ says Judge Hermeliński. ‘But today? I see this has become the norm. I am lost for words, it’s all very sad,’ he concludes.

During the press conference, a government spokesperson was asked about today’s publication in Poufna Rozmowa. ‘I shall not comment on Russian intelligence activities,’ said Piotr Müller.

Julia Przyłębska addressed the whole matter in ‘Trójkowy komentarz dnia’ ‘I never discuss any judgments with anyone,’ she said.

E-mail scandal. How it started

Screenshots purported to come from Michał Dworczyk’s private mailbox, as well as those of other politicians and activists associated with the ruling camp, have been appearing in the internet since the beginning of June last year. On 9 June, the head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery declared on Twitter that the hacking of his and his wife’s e-mailboxes, as well as their social media accounts, had been reported to the State services.

Since then, new messages from Michal Dworczyk’s e-mail account have been appearing in the web. These probably included confidential information about the Polish army’s weapons, the disclosure of the details of the defence negotiations with other countries, as well as internal conversations of Mateusz Morawiecki’s closest environment, including those that also involved him.

The article in Polish was published at Onet.pl