Appeal in the Kaczyński–Brejza case. “The court incorrectly assessed the harmfulness of the words”

There is an appeal against the discontinuation of the case of PiS president Jarosław Kaczyński against the accusation of KO MEP Krzysztof Brejza – informed PAP his wife, Dorota Brejza, representing the MEP. The appeal challenges, among others: the assessment of the court of first instance that Kaczyński's words were of low social harmfulness.

In the appeal, Brejza's lawyer requested the annulment of the judgment of the Warsaw district court from January this year. and remit the case for reconsideration in the first instance.

The case of defamation of MEP Brejza by the president of PiS, which was pending before the District Court for Warsaw-Śródmieście since autumn last year, was discontinued by this court due to the negligible social harmfulness of the act on January 27 this year. In the oral justification of the ruling, Judge Tomasz Trębicki assessed, among other things, that: Kaczyński's behavior “was not socially harmful to an extent exceeding the limits of criminal liability”.

The essence of the dispute is the words before the investigative commission

The private accusation concerned the words of the PiS president, which were made at a meeting of the parliamentary investigative committee on Pegasus in March 2024. The PiS leader, referring to Brejza, said then: “A significant opposition politician commits very serious and disgusting crimes.” In this case, the Sejm revoked Kaczyński's immunity in March last year.

On Tuesday, attorney Dorota Brejza informed PAP that last week she filed an appeal against the January ruling to the District Court in Warsaw. She added that she is currently waiting for the court of second instance to set a hearing date, but she expects it will not happen earlier than in a few months.

In the appeal sent to PAP, the lawyer recalled that the court had no doubt that the PiS president defamed MEP Brejza through the media. However, she did not agree with the court's assessment that Kaczyński's actions were of low social harm.

Appeal arguments: individual dignity and debate hygiene

In January, in the oral justification of the judgment, Judge Trębicki pointed out that Kaczyński spoke as a witness before the Sejm investigative committee, and the statement was made in response to one of the questions asked by the committee members to the PiS president. More importantly, the court added, the questions also concerned “thoughts and opinions.” – As the judge then noted, Kaczyński's words were not written as an independent thesis, but as a statement constructed in response to a question.

However, in the appeal, attorney Brejza pointed out that the statement of the PiS president harmed “not only the personal dignity, honor and image of Krzysztof Brejza, but also – due to the public nature of the act and media resonance – (…) the honesty of public debate.”

Just as Krzysztof Brejza has the right to effectively defend his good name, the public that receives various information in the public space has the right to access content free from lies and disinformation, the lawyer added.

She also emphasized that the extent of the damage caused by the PiS president's actions should be measured not only by harming Brejza, but also by what the public debate should look like. “The judgment in the present case therefore goes beyond a purely individual aspect” – said attorney Brejza in her appeal. She also pointed out that the January judgment of the first instance was issued with “numerous errors in terms of important findings related to the factual situation.”

Background of the case: Pegasus and the Inowrocław investigations

During the November hearing before the district court in this case, Kaczyński explained that as deputy prime minister (Mateusz Morawiecki was the head of government at that time) he was responsible for, among others, security issues, he received information that Brejza had undertaken “unlawful” and “morally repugnant” actions. As he added, he obtained this information from a public security official, and it concerned the fact that Pegasus was used against Brejza in connection with the activities of the municipal authorities in Inowrocław.

Some media then described that there was to be a “propaganda department”, a troll farm – a group of haters who were to attack opponents of the president of Inowrocław, Ryszard Brejza and his son Krzysztof. – Using public funds to wage a brutal political fight against your opponents is disgusting and violates criminal law, Kaczyński said during the November hearing.

At the end of 2024, the District Prosecutor's Office in Gdańsk discontinued the investigation conducted against Ryszard Brejza due to the finding that the act did not contain the elements of a prohibited act. “In addition, the preparatory proceedings were discontinued regarding the suspicion of abuse of powers by other persons, as well as acting as an intermediary in obtaining work at the Inowrocław City Hall in exchange for material or personal benefits, as well as the expenditure of funds of one of the electoral committees in connection with the elections to the European Parliament in 2019, in violation of the expenditure limits specified for electoral committees,” the prosecutor's office informed then.

According to information announced at the turn of 2021/2022 by the Canadian Citizen Lab group, Krzysztof Brejza was to be one of the people under surveillance using the Pegasus system developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, which allows, among others, to obtain data from a surveillance smartphone. Brejza's phone was hacked 33 times between April 26, 2019 and October 23, 2019, when he was KO's chief of staff before the parliamentary elections. In April 2024, PK confirmed that Brejza was under surveillance using this system. (PAP)

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