Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-18-Speech-1-073"
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"en.20080218.20.1-073"2
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"Mr President, in April 2005 Mr Tomczak requested that the European Parliament defend his immunity in criminal proceedings, but Parliament decided, a year later, not to defend his immunity.
In the light of the above considerations, I recommend that the immunity of Mr Tomczak should not be defended.
On 21 May 2007, Mr Tomczak again requested that the European Parliament defend his immunity. In the new request, Mr Tomczak presented three new arguments concerning the same case. The first argument: Mr Tomczak complains that the Court of Ostrów did not grant him access to the files of the case. However, after examination of his complaint, it was found that Mr Tomczak was granted access to the files when he visited the court himself. He even photographed at least one of the documents.
The second argument: Mr Tomczak claims that the proceedings are not objective, as the supervisory judge made a request to the judge presiding in the case to deliver the judgment as soon as possible, even without the presence of the accused. However, this request was issued after Mr Tomczak had failed to appear at the court hearings on as many as 12 occasions.
The third argument: Mr Tomczak alleges that the Court of Ostrów is prejudiced against his person. However, the fact, declared by Mr Tomczak, that the judge presiding in the case lives in the same town as the prosecutor against whom Mr Tomczak had previously filed charges does not in itself prevent that judge from acting objectively.
In addition, Mr Tomczak has the opportunity to appeal to a higher court and to make a cassation complaint to the Polish Supreme Court. The argument put forward by Mr Tomczak, who was a member of the Polish Parliament in 1999, that his national parliamentary immunity remained a formal obstacle to the criminal proceedings should be duly considered by the Polish judicial authorities.
The problematic legal consequence that, according to Polish law, Mr Tomczak might lose his seat in this Parliament has been noted by the Committee on Legal Affairs, and its chairman put an oral question to the Commission. It was answered on 14 January 2008 by Commissioner Frattini, who promised to address the Polish authorities, with the aim of ensuring that Polish law does not discriminate between Members of the European Parliament and national parliamentarians.
After the debate with the Commission, the Committee on Legal Affairs took a decision not to recommend the defence of Mr Tomczak’s parliamentary immunity on the above grounds.
It is clear that Articles 8 and 9 of the Protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities are not applicable in the case of Mr Tomczak. His request should be treated as a request for a decision of the European Parliament to ask for suspension of the proceedings against him, as, for example, is possible under Article 105 of the Polish constitution.
Following its established practice, Parliament could decide to defend the immunity of one of its Members if a suspicion existed that the prosecution was based on an intention to prejudice a member’s political activities (
). There is no clear evidence of this kind in the case of Mr Tomczak."@en1
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