Ordo Iuris Wins Case Against Polish Government Over Blind Application of EU Law in Child Removal

The Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw, in its judgment of July 8, 2025, ruled that the Ministry of Justice had failed to act on the request of the Ordo Iuris Institute for access to public information and awarded the institute the costs of the proceedings (PLN 597). The judgment was delivered in a closed session and was not delivered to the Ordo Iuris Institute until August 7, together with the statement of reasons.

The case concerns the refusal of the Minister of Justice to disclose guidelines or notes prepared following a meeting held at the Ministry in February 2024. All that is known is that during this meeting, the cooperation between the Ministry of Justice and the central authorities of the EU in family and maintenance matters was discussed. However, the Ministry of Justice refused to disclose the draft guidelines, stating that they did not constitute public information. Ordo Iuris’ request in this case was submitted to the ministry on September 19, 2024.

Advocate Bartosz Lewandowski spoke about this meeting in an interview in Polish published on September 2, 2024, on the Ordo Iuris website entitled “Attorney Lewandowski on the deportation of Polish children to Sweden: a return to what was before 2015,” ie. when Donald Tusk was already prime minister of Poland. In this interview devoted to the sad fate of a Polish family who returned to the country for fear of the actions of the Swedish authorities, he claimed that the Ministry of Justice’s statement published after the February meeting with EU ambassadors suggested that, at that meeting, Deputy Minister Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz assured that under the new governing coalition, Poland would no longer be a refuge for families fleeing abuse by social services such as the Norwegian Barnevernet, the German Jugendamt, and other infamous institutions, including those repeatedly condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, such as Barnevernet.

As lawyer Lewandowski said at the time: “That’s how it used to work. I remember before 2015, when we were handling such cases. There were even bizarre situations where officials from other countries came to Poland without any court ruling. They simply showed their ID and obtained the consent of the Polish authorities, or the consent of Polish institutions, such as social services, to take the child away. Those were really the times.”

Why does the Ministry of Justice not want to disclose the findings of the EU embassies to Poles?

For this reason, in its request for access to public information, the Ordo Iuris Institute demanded access to the content of the memo, minutes, draft guidelines, or any other document resulting from the meeting between Deputy Minister Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz and representatives of diplomatic missions, during which the cooperation between the Ministry of Justice and EU central authorities in family and maintenance matters was discussed. The purpose of the meeting was to inform the authorities of other EU countries about the direction in which Polish authorities will act in the protection of families fleeing abuse by social services such as the Norwegian Barnevernet, Swedish social services, or the German Jugendamt.

In response to a request from the Ordo Iuris Institute, the Ministry of Justice informed in a letter dated October 10, 2024, that a response would be provided by October 15. This deadline was not met. Subsequently, in its response issued on October 16, the Ministry of Justice refused to disclose the requested information to the Ordo Iuris Institute, stating that they did not constitute public information within the meaning of the Act of September 6, 2001, on access to public information, because notes from such meetings are internal documents, do not have public information value, are produced solely for the needs of the Ministry of Justice, and the Act on Access to Public Information does not apply to them.

Complaint by the Ordo Iuris Institute to the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw

The Ordo Iuris Institute then lodged a complaint against this attitude of the authority with the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw. The complaint stated that the Minister of Justice had disregarded a number of administrative court rulings, which clearly state that public information is any information produced by or relating to public authorities or other entities performing public tasks. Administrative courts have repeatedly pointed out that both official documents and other documents that are carriers of public information are subject to disclosure as public information.

The refusal to disclose such an important document, which in fact has an impact on family and maintenance policy, including decisions to separate children from their parents at the request of authorities from other EU countries, limits the possibility of civic control over the activities of state authorities in key social issues. In addition, the Institute again pointed out that the government administration has repeatedly made internal documents available, such as a memo from a meeting with the tobacco industry, published on the website of the Ministry of Development and Technology, or a memo from March 4, 2020, made public by the Ministry of Finance, from a meeting with internal auditors of public finance sector entities concerning a methodological regulation, or a memo from a meeting of public sector audit committees on October 18, 2017.

The indifference of Donald Tusk’s government and former minister Adam Bodnar to the fate of Polish children

Meanwhile, the case of the Klaman family remains unresolved. In July 2024, Swedish officials (acting with the consent of a Polish court and the Polish government) took their daughters away on Polish territory and transported them to Sweden. Since then, the Polish children have had no contact with their biological family, live in Swedish foster families who do not speak Polish, and are separated from each other.

Notified by the girls’ parents after their removal to Sweden, lawyers from the Ordo Iuris Institute are continuing to fight for the children’s return to their country. Their primary goal is to ensure that, until the proceedings concerning the parents’ parental rights are concluded, all children are placed with a single foster family related to them and living in Poland – their aunt and uncle (whom the children know well and feel comfortable with).

In the opinion of the lawyers of the Ordo Iuris Institute, taking into account the principle of priority in foster care for persons related or related by marriage to minors, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child of November 20, 1989, the right of the child to be raised in his or her natural family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love, and understanding, and the protection of family life from state interference, it would be entirely justified for the Polish government to make such a request to the Swedish authorities.

Regardless of this, the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture will continue to demand disclosure of the details of the meeting between Deputy Minister of Justice Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz and representatives of embassies of European Union countries, which took place in February 2024.

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