2019-08-23 19:31 update: 2019-08-27, 16:53
Photo PAP/Piotr Polak
Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro requested the National Judicial Council (KRS) on Friday to devise a code of ethics to regulate the behaviour of the country's judges on social media. The move comes in the wake of a defamation scandal.
According to the Justice Ministry, "the initiative is aimed at cleansing judicial circles of behaviour inconsistent with representatives of the judiciary."
The Onet.pl portal has reported since the start of the week on organised hate, discreditation, and slander by certain judges on social media. According to the portal's reports, erstwhile Deputy Justice Minister Lukasz Piebiaki was involved in the campaign along with KRS members Maciej Nawacki and Jaroslaw Dudzic as well as Supreme Court Judge Konrad Wytrykowski and a judge delegated to the Ministry of Justice, Jakub Iwaniec. Deputy Minister Piebiak subsequently resigned over allegations of his involvement in the affair.
The justice minister said the KRS was the appropriate body to devise a code of ethics in cooperation with the judges themselves and all legal circles. In Ziobro's opinion, the code should include regulations that will counter judges' breaches of non-party and apolitical principles. Ziobro said: "ethical principles cannot permit anonymous engagement of judges in social media and commenting on verdicts on them."
"Citizens also expect judges not to use hate speech, not to use vulgarisms, not to publish obscene pictures and not to break the boundaries of good taste," the ministry said.
Among the actions cited by the Justice Ministry as unacceptable were: "comparing the work of the CBA (Anti-Corruption Bureau - PAP) to Stalinist methods, comparing PiS (the ruling Law and Justice party) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski to Adolf Hitler, calls for revenge against judges engaged in reform of the judiciary, threatening Supreme Court candidates that they will be held accountable 'for a coup d'état', or offering someone on Twitter identifying themselves as a known journalist with help in fighting one of the political parties." (PAP)
