Democracy Digest: Is Former Polish Justice Minister Headed Into Budapest Exile?
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has tightened his control over Hungary’s media landscape after the country’s largest tabloid, Blikk, was taken over by a publisher aligned with the government. In neighboring states, the far-right made gains: a nationalist leader has been elected as the speaker of the Czech lower house, while Slovakia faces a surge in petty theft following recent revisions to its criminal code.
Legal Pressure on Former Justice Minister
The investigation continues to close in on members of Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS), accused of bending legal norms during their governance from 2015 to 2023. On Thursday, the Polish parliamentary affairs committee began reviewing the possibility of lifting the parliamentary immunity of former justice minister and PiS MP Zbigniew Ziobro. He faces multiple allegations of misuse of power while in office.
“Among the charges is the alleged misallocation of millions of euros from a crime prevention and victim support fund to the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) to finance the purchase of Pegasus surveillance software.”
An indictment was filed in October against one of Ziobro’s former deputies, Michal Wos, in connection with the same case. In September, police escorted Ziobro off a plane to testify before a parliamentary commission investigating the Pegasus spyware scandal under the former PiS administration.
The National Prosecutor’s Office reportedly seeks to bring 26 charges against Ziobro. The most severe alleges that he led a criminal group operating within the Ministry of Justice that benefited entities connected to him, according to a 158-page document submitted to the parliament’s speaker and cited by Euronews.
Summary
Authorities in Poland intensify their investigation into ex-minister Zbigniew Ziobro, accused of corruption and misuse of state funds during his leadership within the PiS government.