The Sovereignty of Poland according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office
Prof. Piotr Witakowski
- CRIME AGAINST THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND
The resolution on defense adopted by the European Parliament on March 12 of this year [1] takes away the sovereignty of the Republic of Poland in this area. This is yet another act of the European Parliament directed against Polish sovereignty. In November 2023, thanks to the votes of 9 Polish MEPs, the European Parliament passed a resolution depriving the Republic of Poland of sovereignty in many areas. A few days later, I sent an article entitled “A Crime Against the Republic of Poland” to many people and institutions. Below you can find the full text of the article.
A Crime Against the Republic of Poland
On November 22nd, a vote was held in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on a draft resolution entitled “Proposals of the European Parliament for amendment of the Treaties” [2]. The resolution calls for the introduction of 267 amendments to the Treaty of Lisbon, radically changing the powers of Member States, including those affecting the Republic of Poland. It calls for a significant limitation of the independence of the Republic of Poland by giving the right to decide on many aspects of social, economic, and political life to unelected bodies of the European Union. The provisions of this resolution, therefore, constitute an interference in the constitutional rights of Polish parliamentary authorities and the Government of the Republic of Poland.
Nine MEPs elected in Poland voted in favor of such a curtailment of the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Poland. They were: Marek Balt, Marek Belka, Robert Biedroń, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Łukasz Kohut, Bogusław Liberadzki, Leszek Miller, Róża Thun und Hohenstein and Sylwia Spurek [3]. The resolution was adopted by a majority of 17 votes (291 in favor, 274 against, and 44 abstentions). It would therefore have been rejected if these nine Polish parliamentarians had voted against it.
The events in the European Parliament are an analogy to the Partition Sejm of 1773. At the beginning of August 1772, Russian, Prussian, and Austrian troops simultaneously entered Polish territory and began to occupy the territories agreed upon between them. However, the occupiers were not satisfied with the territorial gains alone, but wanted the already accomplished partition of the Republic of Poland to be accepted and approved by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland. By bribing some of the deputies and terrorizing the rest, the occupiers achieved their desired goal at the Partition Sejm in 1773. According to the occupiers’ narrative, Poland was to benefit in many ways. External security was to be provided by the occupying powers. They also guaranteed the “cardinal rights”, and in the country, order was restored and “anarchy eliminated.” Nowadays, this is called “restoration of the rule of law.” The Republic of Poland was not completely eliminated.
Two more partitions were needed for that. But it lost the essential attribute of independence – it agreed that its fate would be decided not in Warsaw, but in St. Petersburg, Vienna and Berlin. Now, the “benefit of the Republic of Poland” is supposed to lie in the fact that its fate will be decided in Brussels and Berlin. Tsarina Catherine was to be the guarantor of the rule of law after the first partition, and the European Commission is to be the guarantor of the rule of law after the adoption of the European Parliament resolution.
The moral judgement of the Polish representatives who voted for the limitation of Polish independence is clear and such people are usually referred to as renegades or traitors. However, the legal qualification of their act is important. To do so, we must refer to the Penal Code in force in Poland [4]. In Chapter XVII, entitled “A Crime Against the Republic of Poland”, the first three articles read as follows:
Art. 127. § 1. Whoever, with the aim of depriving the independence, detaching part of the territory or changing the constitutional system of the Republic of Poland by force, undertakes, in consultation with other persons, activities aimed directly at realising this goal, shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of not less than 10 years or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for life.
- 2. Whoever makes preparations to commit the offence referred to in § 1,
shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 3 and 20 years.
Art. 128. § 1. Whoever, in order to remove by force a constitutional body of the Republic of Poland, undertakes activities aimed directly at achieving this goal,
shall be subject to the penalty of imprisonment for a term of between 3 and 20 years.
- 2. Whoever makes preparations to commit the offence referred to in § 1,
shall be subject to the penalty of imprisonment for a term of between 3 months and 5 years.
- 3. Whoever influences the official activities of a constitutional body of the Republic of Poland by means of violence or unlawful threats
shall be subject to the penalty of imprisonment for a term of between 1 and 10 years.
Art. 129. Whoever, being authorised to act on behalf of the Republic of Poland in relations with the government of a foreign state or a foreign organisation, acts to the detriment of the Republic of Poland, shall be subject to the penalty of imprisonment for a term of between one and ten years.
The act committed by the nine MEPs mentioned above fulfils the conditions set out in Article 127(1) and Article 129. It should be emphasised that this act was committed by a repeat offender. All these MEPs have voted against Poland countless times. Despite this, they continue to represent Poland in the European Parliament and enjoy full civil rights. The Penal Code provides for the possibility of curbing such harmful activities, as stated in Article 40 of the Penal Code.
Art. 40. § 1. Deprivation of public rights includes the loss of active and passive voting rights to a public authority, a professional or economic self-government body, the loss of the right to participate in the administration of justice and to hold office in state and local government or professional bodies and institutions, as well as the loss of any military rank held and demotion to the rank of private; deprivation of civic rights shall also include the loss of orders, decorations and honorary titles, and the loss of the ability to obtain them during the period of disqualification.
- 2. The court may order the deprivation of civic rights in the event of a conviction:
- to a custodial sentence of not less than 3 years for an offence committed as a result of a motivation deserving of particular condemnation;
There is no doubt that activities aimed at undermining the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Poland deserve particular condemnation. It is therefore surprising why such harmful anti-Polish activities have not yet met with a response from any state authority obliged to protect the state and the existing legal order. Since the institutions are silent, perhaps the time has come for the citizens of the Republic of Poland to speak out on this matter.
Warsaw, 30 November 2023.
In the face of this unprecedented attack on the sovereignty and independence of our homeland, the question “What needs to be done to activate the institutions obliged to defend it?” was included in a short cover letter addressed to the recipients of my article.
The article received many responses, many of which called for the prosecutor’s office to be notified of the crime. CitizenGo Poland proposed to create a petition on its platform regarding this matter. In accordance with this proposal, I prepared a petition for the CitizenGo portal to the National Prosecutor’s Office with the following content:
Petition
Polish MEPs should be stripped of their right to represent Poland in the European Parliament.
To the National Public Prosecutor’s Office:
On 22 November 2023, in a vote on the resolution “Proposals of the European Parliament on Amendment of the Treaties”, 9 MEPs representing Poland voted in favor of partially depriving the Republic of Poland of its independence and sovereignty. According to the resolution, this is to be achieved by depriving the elected authorities of the Republic of Poland of their constitutional powers and transferring these powers to the authorities of the European Union, which are not elected by the Polish people. The act committed by Marek Balt, Marek Belka, Robert Biedroń, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Łukasz Kohut, Bogusław Liberadzki, Leszek Miller, Róża Thun und Hohenstein and Sylwia Spurek constitutes a crime against the Republic of Poland as defined in the Penal Code in Art. 127 and Art. 129. We believe that by acting against the independence of the Republic of Poland, the aforementioned MEPs have disgraced themselves and lost the right to represent the Republic of Poland in the European Parliament. We call on the National Public Prosecutor’s Office to indict these MEPs and demand that they be deprived of their public rights in accordance with Article 40 of the Penal Code. This will prevent them from representing Poland in the European Parliament and from further damaging the Republic of Poland.
- PETITION TO STRIP POLISH MEPS OF THEIR PUBLIC RIGHTS
The aforementioned article ‘A Crime Against the Republic of Poland’ was posted on the portal as the justification for the petition. The petition and its justification were sent to numerous individuals and institutions on December 14, 2023. The petition began to attract signatures (1,688 people signed the petition in total [5]). Without waiting for the end of the signature collection campaign, the Institute of National Remembrance forwarded the petition to the National Public Prosecutor’s Office. Therefore, the Preparatory Proceedings Department of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office informed me in a letter dated January 11, 2024 (Fig. 1) that it was transferring the case ‘for further proceedings’ to the Regional Public Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw. Soon, I also received a letter from the Regional Prosecutor’s Office dated January 18, 2024 (Fig. 2). In the letter, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office informs that it is transferring the case ‘for further proceedings’ to the Warsaw-Mokotów District Prosecutor’s Office.
In the Notification (Zawiadomienie), the most important part is the operative part, which constitutes a refusal to initiate an investigation.
‘The secretariat of the District Prosecutor’s Office for Warszawa-Mokotów announces that, by decision of December 21, 2023, it refused to initiate an investigation into the action of November 22, 2023 in Brussels, committed to the detriment of the Republic of Poland by persons authorised to act on behalf of the Republic of Poland in relations with a foreign organization – the European Union, in the form of established Members of the European Parliament, by voting in favor of a draft resolution “Proposals of the European Parliament on amendment of the Treaties”, thereby acting to limit the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Poland, i.e. an act under Article 129 of the Penal Code, pursuant to Article 17(1)(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as it has been established that the act does not contain the characteristics of a criminal offense.
Particularly noteworthy are the last three lines of the justification in Notice 3 – “acting to limit the sovereignty and independence”, but ‘the act does not contain the characteristics of a criminal offense.”
The cited legal basis for refusing to initiate an investigation, i.e. Article 17 § 1 point 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, reads as follows [4]:
Particularly noteworthy are the last three lines of the justification in Notice 3 – “acting to limit the sovereignty and independence”, but ‘the act does not contain the characteristics of a criminal offense.”
The cited legal basis for refusing to initiate an investigation, i.e. Article 17 § 1 point 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, reads as follows [4]:
“Proceedings shall not be initiated, and those already initiated shall be discontinued, when the act does not contain the characteristics of a prohibited act or the law states that the perpetrator does not commit a crime.” The District Prosecutor’s Office justifies its refusal to initiate an investigation by stating that, in its opinion, the act “with the aim of restricting sovereignty and independence” does not constitute the elements of a criminal offense. This statement by the District Prosecutor’s Office clearly contradicts the wording of Articles 127 and 129 of the Penal Code.
- NOTIFICATION OF A CRIME
At the same time as the District Prosecutor’s Office was making its own interpretations of the provisions of two articles of the Penal Code, a petition was being collected on the CitizenGo Polska portal to deprive 9 (nine) MEPs of their public rights and the right to represent Poland in the European Parliament in accordance with Article 40 of the
Criminal Code – in the European Parliament. On January 19, 2024, a notification of a suspected crime having been committed was submitted to the National Public Prosecutor’s Office, to which the above-mentioned petition was attached, as well as a list of names of 1,282 of its current signatories, indicating the website where further signatures were added to the petition. A copy of the notification, together with the aforementioned list, was also forwarded to the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda. In response, the Preparatory Proceedings Department of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office informed me in a letter dated February 19, 2024 (Fig. 4) that it had forwarded the case “for further proceedings” to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, which in turn informed me in a letter dated February 28, 2024 (Fig. 5) that it had forwarded the case “for further proceedings” to the District Prosecutor’s Office Warsaw-Mokotów.
However, the Regional Public Prosecutor’s Office remained quiet and I was never informed about any actions. The President’s Office also never showed any interest in the case.
- FINAL REMARKS
The District Prosecutor’s Office for Warsaw-Mokotów’s acknowledgement that “acting with the aim of restricting sovereignty and independence does not constitute a criminal offence” is shocking and raises objections to the blatant contradiction with the content of Articles 127 and 129 of the Penal Code. With this decision, the District Prosecutor’s Office Warsaw-Mokotów sanctions an act aimed at restricting sovereignty. Both aforementioned articles of the Penal Code provide for such an act a penalty of life or 10 years in prison, which makes it a crime classified as a felony.
The silence of the President’s Office on this matter is also surprising. According to Article 126(2) of the Polish Constitution, “the President of the Republic of Poland shall watch over the observance of the Constitution, safeguard the sovereignty and security of the State, and the inviolability and indivisibility of its territory.” When even the Public Prosecutor’s Office states that we are dealing “with an action to limit sovereignty”, it is completely incomprehensible that the President, who according to the Constitution is the highest representative of the Republic of Poland and the guarantor of the continuity of state power, remains silent. After all, we are not dealing with a common crime, but with a crime committed by persons “authorized to act on behalf of the Republic of Poland in relations with the government of a foreign state or a foreign organisation” (Art. 129. Penal Code).
The refusal to punish the aforementioned representatives of the Republic of Poland acting to its detriment had fatal consequences. Acting “to limit sovereignty”, they stood again for the European Parliament in the elections that took place on June 9, 2024, and two of them, Robert Biedroń and Łukasz Kohut, were re-elected to the EP. The fact that they were not punished with the deprivation of public rights for acting “with the aim of restricting sovereignty” allowed them to stand as candidates, and the voters’ ignorance of whether they had committed the acts specified in the Penal Code allowed them to be elected.
We are currently witnessing further actions by MEPs representing the Republic of Poland, which lead to the loss of sovereignty. The unpunished crime of 2023 has tragic consequences and the same question must be asked again: “What needs to be done to activate the institutions obliged to defend the Republic of Poland?”
Translation J. Czarniecki
Bibliographic references
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-0034_PL.pdf
[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/pl/votes.html?tab=votes
[3] The results of the roll-call votes are available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9- 2023-11-22-RCV_PL.html
[4] Act of 6 June 1997, Penal Code, as amended, Journal of Laws 1997 No. 88, item 553
https://citizengo.org/pl/212524-do-prokuratury
