Śpiewak lost the trial and got a huge penalty: "We have an increasingly authoritarian justice system"

I received PLN 225,000 in fines for using the phrase „wild reprivatization”

— wrote Jan Śpiewak on his Facebook profile.

The city activist lost in court to the Warsaw lawyer Jerzy Szaniawski. He has to publish his apology on one of the most popular portals. The case concerned accusations of participation in the wild reprivatization in Warsaw.

The court sentenced me to publish my apology for two weeks on the homepage of one of the most popular portals in Poland. The appraisal I received knocked me off m feet. An apology alone will cost PLN 221,000. In addition, there are 5 thousand fines. For what? For the fact that I dared to recognize that if a lawyer buys claims and takes over buildings it is a wild reprivatization. For the last six years, we have been calling the whole Warsaw reprivatisation a wild reprivatisation, because it is carried out not on the basis of the law but on the basis of very strange administrative courts’ jurisprudence

— we read in the Facebook post.

Śpiewak has announced that he will appeal against the sentence.

Such sentences are becoming more and more frequent. Unfortunately, we have an increasingly authoritarian judiciary that is claiming more and more power over the lives of citizens. Unfortunately, these are Belarusian standards. I hope that the Court of Appeal will come to its senses. If not, I think I will have to flee Poland

— writes Śpiewak.

Tłum. K.J.