Zbigniew Kapiński will take up his function on Wednesday, Rafał Leśkiewicz told the president. The term of office of the current First President of the Supreme Court, Małgorzata Manowska, expires on Tuesday.
— The president, having five candidates in front of him, decided to choose Judge Kapiński, said the presidential spokesman at a press conference.
And president of the Supreme Court. Who chooses?
In accordance with the applicable regulations, the First President of the Supreme Court is appointed by the President for a 6-year term from among five candidates selected by the General Assembly of the Supreme Court. You can be re-appointed to the position of the First President of the Supreme Court only once.
See also: Giertych appreciates the new first president of the Supreme Court. “I'm grateful to him for that.”
The procedure for selecting candidates for the new First President of the Supreme Court began in February this year. Due to the lack of the necessary quorum, the candidates were selected only after the third attempt.
Finally, on February 27 this year. The General Assembly of the Supreme Court voted on the candidacies submitted to the president. These were the judges: Paweł Czubik, Tomasz Demendecki, Zbigniew Kapiński, Aleksander Stępkowski and Mariusz Załucki. All of them are judges appointed to the Supreme Court after changes to the National Council of the Judiciary as a result of the 2017 Act.
Who is Zbigniew Kapiński?
Kapiński was born on February 16, 1963 in Mokobody, in the province of Masovian Voivodeship. He graduated in law from the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. He became a judge in 1992 and started adjudicating at the District Court in Siedlce.
He is a specialist in criminal law involved in the training of judges, prosecutors, lawyers, legal advisors and notaries; he was also an examiner for the attorney apprenticeship. He was appointed to the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court in June 2022.
According to the president's spokesman, Kapiński is an “extremely experienced judge” who “has heard criminal cases with a very serious degree of complexity.”
He also emphasized that Judge Kapiński “was the first to oppose the violation of the rule of law by the current government.”
See also: Zbigniew Kapiński is the new First President of the Supreme Court. Who is the man who disgraced the PiS president?
Zbigniew Kapiński and the case of Lech Wałęsa
The Ombudsman also referred to the accusations that had recently been made against Judge Kapiński in the media. They concerned the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Wrasaw of August 2000. At that time, the court – which included Kapiński – ruled that Lech Wałęsa had made a true lustration declaration that he was not an agent of the PRL secret services. According to Leśkiewicz, today there is “no doubt” that Wałęsa was a secret collaborator of the Security Service.
“There is abundant evidence for this,” Leśkiewicz emphasized. He also stated that President Nawrocki “never had and does not have” such doubts. He argued that in August 2000, not all documents “produced by the communist security apparatus” were known and the appeals court did not have all the documents we know about today.
