On July 12, 2024, the Polish Sejm granted the prosecutor’s office permission to press criminal charges and detain the former Deputy Minister of Justice, now MP Marcin Romanowski. After his immunity was lifted, M. Romanowski stated that he had no plans to disrupt the proceedings or flee and was willing to address the ‘serious, baseless, politically motivated accusations.’ On the same day, he showed up with his defense lawyer at the prosecutor’s office, but nobody was willing to speak with him.
On July 15, 2024, at about 2:00 p.m., special services – the Internal Security Agency (ABW) – entered M. Romanowski’s apartment. The apartment was searched, and the MP was searched, having previously stripped him naked and forced to perform actions that deeply offended human dignity. Then, handcuffed, he was led out in front of media cameras. Arresting a person in the light of cameras, with the use of handcuffs, after a search of a person forced to strip naked is unjustified, a grave violation of human dignity (this was also admitted by the Polish Ombudsman (Commissioner for Citizen Rights) Professor M.Wiącek and disproportionate to the assumed objectives of criminal proceedings.
What is essential is that the detention of MP M. Romanowski was illegal. I want to make sure I understand this correctly. As a Sejm of the Republic of Poland member, Marcin Romanowski is protected by immunity under the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). This immunity is specified in the General Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe, as well as in the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly and the Guidelines on the scope of parliamentary immunities enjoyed by members of the Parliamentary Assembly, PACE Res. 2392 (2021). It’s widely acknowledged that PACE members are immune “while performing their functions,” likely meaning the entire parliamentary year, as pointed out by Professor I. Kamiński, a former ad hoc judge of the ECtHR.
