In 2021, during a protest against the so-called CT ruling on abortion, 21-year-old student Julia Landowska desperately shouted “**** ***”. A court fined her PLN 50 for violating Article 141 of the Code of Offences, which prohibits the use of obscene words in a public place. Professor Michał Romanowski, who represented Julia, appealed the verdict.
“8 out of 10 adults use vulgarities, and their use is not always indecent. It all depends on the context of the speech. Often vulgarisms are a vehicle for expression. “Je…ć PiS” became a slogan for protests in which hundreds of thousands of people participated, it became an expression of rebellion and dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities just as the cry “Down with communism” used to be,” says Prof. Romanowski.
Last week, more than two years after the incident, a hearing was held. However, the case has not been resolved.
Prof Romanowski expresses impatience: “The case is not about 50 zloty, but it is about the right to protest, about freedom of speech and expressing opposition to the actions of the authorities. For the court, the case should be clear: the defendant admits the act, but disagrees that it is an offence. I do not want to engage in political threads, but it is worth noting that the time to resolve this case is approaching the parliamentary elections. The authorities who use the criminal law to prohibit the manifestation in public space of a critical assessment of their conduct with slogans such as ‘j**** PiS’ or ‘P******* any government’ are behaving like the authorities in totalitarian systems allowing only favourable assessments of the ruling party” .
People supporting Julia picketed in front of the court in Gdansk. They chanted “You won’t walk alone” and “It’s all about now”.
“Human rights, including the right to protest, should be upheld by an independent court. The fight for the rule of law is a fight for human rights. The executive, which is taking control of the judiciary, is doing so to control not only business and its opponents and to ensure impunity. The actions of the police – the filing of a motion to punish Yulia for protesting against the decisions of the politicised Constitutional Court 9 months after the events – shows that the authorities are ready to fight even the slightest manifestations of disobedience.” – says Prof. Michal Romanowski.
“I was lucky to have a professor representing me, without him I wouldn’t have been so bold, because after the first summonses to the police station I was terrified. “(…) Here it is no longer about the amount of the fine (…) It is about the principles of justice. In his expert report, the professor proves what those protests and that cry were about, that it symbolised the powerlessness of the young women who were fighting for their rights. Some of us got fined and paid them because, for example, they didn’t have the opportunity to travel to a court a few dozen kilometres away, others took the professor’s opinion and their cases were dropped. I hope that this will also be the case for me.” – Julia Landowska says.