Polish Senator Suspended After NIK Abuse-of-Power Ruling

The news in Polish

1. zawiesić
   czasowo przeniesiony ze stanowiska lub pozbawiony praw, ale nie na stałe ↩︎
2. skazać
   uznać kogoś w sądzie za winnego przestępstwa i dać mu karę ↩︎
3. nadużycie  (n.)
   sytuacja, gdy ktoś używa swojej władzy lub możliwości w zły, niewłaściwy sposób ↩︎
4. urzędnik  (m.)
   osoba pracująca w urzędzie, wykonująca zadania dla państwa lub samorządu ↩︎
5. zawieszenie  (n.)
   sytuacja, gdy wykonanie kary lub działania jest na pewien czas zatrzymane ↩︎
6. apelacja  (f.)
   odwołanie od wyroku sądu do sądu wyższej instancji ↩︎

Translation

Text comprehension

Question 1: How long was Senator Krzysztof Kwiatkowski suspended from the club?

Question 2: What does the senator say about the court’s decision?

Vocabulary

Polish	English
zawiesić	to suspend
skazać	to convict
nadużycie  (n.)	abuse, misuse
urzędnik  (m.)	civil servant, official
zawieszenie  (n.)	suspension
apelacja  (f.)	appeal (against a court judgement)

Read the full story

Polish senator Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, a member of the opposition Civic Coalition (Koalicja Obywatelska, KO), has been suspended from his parliamentary club for three months after a Warsaw court issued a non-final conviction in a case concerning the appointment of senior officials in Poland’s top audit body.

The decision to suspend him was announced on Wednesday by KO spokesperson Dorota Łoboda. She explained that the suspension was introduced at Kwiatkowski’s own request, after the verdict in a long-running case involving the Supreme Audit Office (in Polish: Najwyższa Izba Kontroli, NIK).

On Tuesday, the Warsaw District Court sentenced Kwiatkowski to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, for abuse of power linked to the way positions were filled at NIK in 2013. Former Polish People’s Party (PSL) parliamentary club leader Jan Bury received a sentence of six months in prison, also suspended for two years. A third defendant, former NIK deputy director in Rzeszów known as Paweł A., was likewise given a six‑month suspended sentence.

According to the court’s findings, when Kwiatkowski was president of NIK, he acted against the public interest in connection with recruitment procedures for several posts, including director of the Łódź delegation, deputy director of the Rzeszów delegation and deputy director in the environment department. Bury was found guilty of inciting and encouraging Kwiatkowski to exceed his powers, while Paweł A. was convicted of passing confidential information to Bury during the competitions.

Both Kwiatkowski and Bury were cleared of part of the charges. The court acquitted Kwiatkowski of one of four alleged offences and Bury of one of three. All three defendants were present in court and agreed to have their names reported by the media.

The ruling is not yet final, which means that under Polish law the defendants are still presumed innocent. Kwiatkowski told journalists immediately after leaving the courtroom that he would appeal to a higher court. In a statement sent to the Polish Press Agency, he argued that the judgment had been issued without proper evidence.

He criticised the investigation, claiming that it was based largely on telephone recordings from operational surveillance which, in his view, were edited and incomplete. Kwiatkowski said that the defence still did not have access to the original recordings and described the proceedings as built around material that supported a pre‑set theory. These claims relate to the probative value of the surveillance evidence, an issue that is now expected to be examined again during the appeal.

The case dates back to an investigation launched in the mid‑2010s and an indictment filed in 2017. The trial itself has been ongoing since 2018. It centres on the way positions in NIK, Poland’s highest state auditing institution, were filled in 2013, and whether political influence was improperly used in what were formally open recruitment competitions.

Within the Civic Coalition, Kwiatkowski’s future was addressed one day after the verdict. Speaking on TV and radio, KO spokesperson Dorota Łoboda stressed that the senator firmly maintains his innocence and that, because the verdict is not final, he remains innocent in the eyes of the law. She said that, “out of a sense of propriety”, he asked to be suspended so that his personal legal situation would not burden the parliamentary group.

The KO club accepted his request and decided to freeze his membership rights for three months. During this period, Kwiatkowski will not participate in the club’s internal decision‑making, although he remains a senator and continues to hold his parliamentary mandate.

The case has drawn attention in Poland because it combines issues of political responsibility, judicial independence and public trust in state institutions. For observers outside the country, it illustrates how senior figures in Polish politics can become involved in lengthy legal proceedings over alleged misuse of power, and how political parties may respond by taking temporary internal measures while waiting for final court decisions.

Info: ‘Polish Learner News’ is a service from ‘Let’s Learn Polish’, a language school dedicated to teaching Polish through a range of online Polish language classes tailored to different levels and needs.