MEPs Met With Victims of Donald Tusk’s “Militant Democracy” at Ordo Iuris Headquarters in Warsaw

A delegation from the European Parliament in Warsaw

A group of politicians from Spain, Hungary, and Portugal arrived in Warsaw on a fact-finding mission to investigate reports of breaches of democratic principles and the rule of law that have been occurring for over a year and a half under the guise of the so-called “restoration of the rule of law” through methods of so-called “militant democracy.” The delegation of the Committee for Respect to Freedom and Democracy (the “Freedom Shield Committee”) has been in Warsaw since Tuesday, from where they were scheduled to fly back to Brussels on Thursday. This committee was established by the European party Patriots for Europe (PfE), consisting of conservative and sovereigntist parties represented in the European Parliament such as the French National Rally, Hungarian Fidesz, Spanish Vox, Italian League, Portuguese Chega, Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Czech ANO 2011, Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), and Polish National Movement (Confederation).

Composition of the delegation and its objectives

Among the members of the European delegation were Committee Chairman Hermann Tertsch (Vox) alongside members Boglárka Bólya (Fidesz) and Rui Gomes Silva (Chega), accompanied by Jorge Martínez Galván, Executive Advisor to the Presidency of the Patriots for Europe European political party. A fourth member of the Freedom Shield Committee, French MEP Pascale Piera, had to cancel her trip to Warsaw due to the tense political situation in France, as explained by Hemann Tertsch. Tertsch, who also serves as the vice-chairman of the Patriots for Europe group, emphasized that establishing the Freedom Shield Committee is a response to actions by the liberals and the left across the continent, aiming to combat the rising popularity of conservative-nationalist parties among voters using undemocratic methods, which includes the establishment of the so-called “European Democracy Shield” by the European Commission. 

In the eyes of MEP Tertsch and his colleagues, Poland was a natural target for the first trip of the Freedom Shield Committee, having become a sort of experimental field for implementing the strategy of the pan-European alliance of leftists and liberals to remain in power, following the change of government in Warsaw aided by the deep interference from Brussels and Berlin. Therefore, according to the Patriots for Europe, it is necessary to speak out loudly in Europe today about what is currently happening in Poland, as next in line are Hungary and other European countries, including those from Western Europe. According to Hermann Tertsch, even now, the coalition of Pedro Sánchez in Spain, consisting of socialists and the far left, blatantly violates the principles of the rule of law and controls the work of prosecutors and courts, which in this case also meets with the silent approval of Brussels.

Meetings with state institutions and Ordo Iuris

After meetings at the Constitutional Tribunal, Supreme Court, and the National Council of the Judiciary, the delegation of the Patriots for Europe group spent several hours on Wednesday, July 16, at the headquarters of the Ordo Iuris Institute, where they familiarized themselves with the English versions of the Polish think tank’s reports on the breaches of the rule of law after December 2023. “A Year of Devastation of the Rule of Law in Poland” from December 2024 and “Violations of the Democratic State of Law and the Rule of Law by the Government of Donald Tusk” from May 2025. Jędrzej Jabłoński, an analyst at the Ordo Iuris Research and Analysis Center coordinating the Liberty and Rule of Law program at the Ordo Iuris Institute, also presented to the European delegation the Rule of Law Observer portal available in Polish and English, which provides the most current information. During the visit to the headquarters of the Ordo Iuris Institute, the European delegation was accompanied by the Confederation politician Krystian Kamiński.

At the request of the Hungarian delegation member, the President of the Ordo Iuris Institute, attorney Jerzy Kwaśniewski, presented areas of rule of law violations deserving special attention, such as the refusal to publish and recognize Constitutional Tribunal rulings and selected Supreme Court decisions by the ruling coalition, withholding salaries from Constitutional Tribunal judges, or challenging the result of the presidential elections. In the meantime, Attorney Bartosz Lewandowski, affiliated with the Ordo Iuris Litigation Center, described specific examples of the impacts of the action of the Tusk government and Justice Minister Adam Bodnar on opposition members and ordinary citizens, following the unlawful takeover of the prosecution service and of most courts in 2024.

Meeting with the victims of Donald Tusk’s government actions

At the request of the Patriots for Europe, the afternoon meeting was devoted to discussions with victims of unlawful actions by Donald Tusk’s government, and in particular by his Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar. Present at the meeting were Judge Piotr Schab, removed from the position of President of the Warsaw Court of Appeal in violation of the provisions of the applicable law, and Judge Adam Jaworski, who discussed specific examples of the tragic situation at the lower level, related to the systemic questioning of the status of a large group of judges by the current authorities. Both judges represented the Judges of Poland (Sędziowie RP) association, whose president, Judge Zygmunt Drożdżejko, was also present at the meeting with the European delegation via remote connection. 

Prosecutors Michał Ostrowski and Andrzej Golec from the Independent Association of Prosecutors “Ad Vocem” discussed the unlawful takeover of the prosecution service and Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar’s manual steering of the prosecution of the governing coalition’s political opposition. Prosecutor Ostrowski also spoke about his own case, that is, how he was deprived of the ability to perform his duties as Deputy Prosecutor General, a position he still legally holds according to the law, and how Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar suspended him from the prosecutor’s function seven days after he initiated an investigation into the suspicion of a coup d’état by the governing coalition following a notification from the president of the Constitutional Tribunal.

During the meeting, attorney Bartosz Lewandowski informed the participants of the latest news of the day, ie. that Bodnar’s prosecutors had just requested the lifting of the immunity of the First President of the Supreme Court.

Dramatic testimonies of repressed citizens

Then, attorney Krzysztof Wąsowski, the defender of Father Olszewski (https://ordoiuris.pl/en/press-newsdesk/fr-olszewskis-detention-is-a-politically-motivated-case-and-sets-a-new-precedent-in-post-communist-poland-his-defense-attorney-says-in-an-interview-with-ordo-iuris-video/) and  Urszula, one of the two female civil servants arrested during Holy Week along with Father Olszewski and detained for 7 months in conditions that qualify as torture under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, spoke up. Such qualification of the described mistreatments was confirmed by Judge Piotr Schab after hearing the testimonies and the members of the European Parliament delegation clearly agreed. Att. Wąsowski not only discussed matters concerning his clients, but also spoke about how persistently Bodnar’s prosecution service summons him as witness number 1 in cases where he represents suspects or the accused, which is not only inconsistent with the obvious prohibition of questioning a lawyer about circumstances covered by attorney-client privilege, but above all aims to hinder the defender’s contact with the individuals he represents, thereby violating their right to defense.

Karolina, the second of the former Ministry of Justice officials detained during Holy Week 2024 and held for 7 months in solitary confinement – under conditions that, according to participants of the Wednesday meeting, met the criteria for torture as defined by the Convention, spoke at the meeting with the Patriots for Europe committee members about the methods used to try to break her. Her pre-trial detention was maintained for the maximum duration in a case that theoretically should have been based on already secured documents, even though she was the sole caregiver for her disabled mother. Karolina also informed the present Members of the European Parliament that after her release by the court, the Bodnar-controlled Prosecutor’s Office still prohibited her from any contact with her fiancé for five months and, and continues to block her bank accounts to this day. As she informed, a complaint in this matter was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights, which accepted this complaint in May of this year.

The European delegation also listened to the testimony of Joanna, the director of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s office and the mother of, among others, a 13-year-old boy with autism. She talked about the search of her house at 6 AM on the day of her arrest, about the completely incomprehensible arrest of her husband for 19 days and her own arrest for two months, and about the case brought by the Bodnar-controlled Prosecutor’s Office before the family court in order to strip her of her parental rights while she was being held in solitary confinement, as well as about the suicide attempts of her son with autism, with whom the mother normally conducts daily therapeutic sessions. Members of the European delegation also heard that Ms. Joanna’s son has not yet made up for the loss resulting from the therapy break and the trauma he experienced.

Pressures on social organizations

Marek Grabowski, the president of the Mom and Dad Foundation, also spoke. He described how his house was searched by six armed, masked agents from the Polish counter-intelligence agency (ABW) in bulletproof vests, in the presence of his four frightened children, which took place on Holy Tuesday 2024 at 6:00 AM. Electronic equipment belonging to him, as well as his children and wife (laptops, phones, even a gaming computer), was taken from the home. It should be added that the children were identified and searched, and some of them still exhibit PTSD symptoms to this day.

On the same day, another group of ABW officers burst in without a warrant, in the absence of Marek Grabowski, into the headquarters of the Mom and Dad Foundation, from which documents belonging to it were removed.

Several days later, the tax administration began a 9-month audit of the Foundation, continually asking questions that were impossible to answer without having the documents that had been taken by the authorities during the search of the Foundation’s headquarters.

The inspections are all the more surprising as the projects co-financed by public funds, which were conducted by the Mamy i Taty Foundation, had already been audited twice by the Supreme Audit Office with positive results for the Foundation.

Finally, the president of the Ordo Iuris Institute clarified that at the same time, more presidents and directors of organizations with a conservative or Christian profile were similarly intimidated by the state services, and it had been very difficult to find even one person for the Wednesday meeting at the Ordo Iuris headquarters who would be willing to talk about it. Most fear further repression from the authorities and many of these individuals have simply ceased to be active in the organizations they previously led. As attorney Jerzy Kwaśniewski explained, the Tusk government’s goal had likely been precisely to weaken or even destroy all civil society organizations with a conservative or Catholic profile.

Visit conclusion and further actions

After saying goodbye to the participants of the meeting at the Ordo Iuris Institute headquarters and thanking them for the information and testimonies about what is currently happening in Poland, the delegation of the Patriots for Europe group went to another meeting at the headquarters of the Lawyers for Poland association.