KO Vice-Chair Must Issue Official Apology: Appellate Court Makes Final Decision

The Rzeszów Court of Appeal has issued a final and binding ruling ordering Civic Coalition Vice-Chair Izabela Leszczyna to apologize to former Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Warchoł.

Final and Binding Ruling by the Rzeszów Court of Appeal

A final and binding verdict has been issued in a high-profile political dispute from two years ago. The Court of Appeal in Rzeszów dismissed the appeal filed by Civic Coalition Vice-Chair Izabela Leszczyna in a personal rights infringement lawsuit brought by former Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Warchoł. The parliamentarian was ordered to issue a public apology on the X platform, pin it to her profile for 14 days, and pay 10,000 PLN to a charitable cause.

Vice-Chair of the Civic Coalition Izabela Leszczyna must apologize to the then-Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Warchoł for her 2002 statements claiming that he extended a “protective umbrella” over a lending company and that the legislation was named “anti-usury” under false pretenses. She must also pay 10,000 PLN to a children’s hospice in Rzeszów.

On Thursday, the Court of Appeal in Rzeszów dismissed the defendant’s appeal against the February 2024 ruling by the Rzeszów Regional Court. The ruling of the Court of Appeal is final. The parties have the right to file a cassation appeal.

X Platform Post and Lawsuit for Protection of Personal Rights

The case concerns a post made by Izabela Leszczyna on the X platform in April 2022. She wrote that a lending company “does not have to worry” because Marcin Warchoł “extended a protective umbrella” over it under a law that was called “anti-usury” under false pretenses.

In response, Warchoł, an MP for Sovereign Poland and in 2022 Deputy Justice Minister, sued Civic Coalition Vice-Chair and MP Izabela Leszczyna for the protection of personal rights and financial compensation. As he announced on X at the time, he sued Leszczyna “for the outrageous lie that our anti-usury law protected dishonest lending companies,” he wrote.

“She tried to hide behind parliamentary immunity because she knows very well that they created the eldorado for usurers in 2011, and we fixed it,” Warchoł added.

Order to Apologize on Profile and Donation to Hospice

In February 2024, the Regional Court in Rzeszów upheld Marcin Warchoł’s lawsuit for the protection of personal rights and compensation, ordering the defendant Izabela Leszczyna to issue a statement apologizing for violating Marcin Warchoł’s honor, good name, and reputation.

On Thursday, the appellate court dismissed the appeal against the first-instance court’s judgment.

By court decision, the defendant must post the apology on her main profile on X within three days of the judgment becoming final, without interruptions or visibility restrictions. She must also attach a legible scan of the signed statement and use the “pin” function so that it appears at the top of the defendant’s profile for at least 14 days.

The court ordered the defendant to remove the post from her X profile that violated Warchoł’s good name within two days of the judgment becoming final. It ordered her to pay 10,000 PLN to the Subcarpathian Children’s Hospice Foundation in Rzeszów. This amount is half of the originally requested sum in the lawsuit.

Leszczyna must also pay the plaintiff’s costs of the appellate proceedings.

Oral Grounds for the Court’s Decision: Defendant’s Statements Were Untrue

As Judge Kazimierz Rusin stated in his oral justification, the court found that Marcin Warchoł’s personal rights had indeed been infringed: his honor, good name, and reputation, damaging his image regarding his activities in the political, academic, and legal spheres.

The judge noted that of key importance was determining whether the defendant’s statement was true, corresponded to reality, and reliably conveyed data presenting the nature of the plaintiff’s activities, who actively participated in the legislative process of this act.

Considering the context in which this statement was formulated, as well as the scope of this statutory regulation, it must be stated that the plaintiff cannot be attributed the intentions that follow from the formulations contained in the defendant’s social media post, Judge Rusin noted.

He added that the court of first instance sought an expert opinion, which concluded that the phrases “to extend a protective umbrella” or “action under false pretenses” attribute deliberate action for a specific purpose to another person.

The judge noted that taking into account all the circumstances established by the court of first instance, it had to be concluded that the defendant’s statement “was not, however, true.” He added that for these reasons, the first-instance court’s judgment had to be deemed accurate.