During the period of martial law in Poland, for political reasons, common courts sentenced 1,685 people, including 979 under the provisions of the martial law decree. In turn, military courts sentenced 5 681 people under the same legal act, while misdemeanour courts punished 207 692 people, including 6 384 people with imprisonment.

Final judgement

Events, which occurred in the martial law period, have been the subject of criminal proceedings by prosecutors of the Departmental Commissions for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation for many years. So far, they have led to the filing of 101 indictments against 175 perpetrators of unlawful actions, including against the Citizens' Militia (MO) provincial commanders, who issued internment decisions, the Prison Service officers who participated in beating people imprisoned in internment centres, the MO special platoon officer who took participation in the pacification of the 'Wujek' mine, the Ministry of Interior officers, who directed people to the so-called military internment camps, and the Security Service (SB) officers who carried out unlawful actions against opposition activists. The spectrum of these matters is broad. The courts have legally convicted several dozen of the accused in these cases for the crimes they committed.

Impunity of communist prosecutors and judges

None of the 25 cases brought before the courts against former judges and prosecutors (from the Stalinist and the martial law periods) has resulted in the defendants' final conviction. Courts discontinued several of these cases because defendants died after filing indictments, while some accused were acquitted of all charges.

The prosecutors of the Branch Commissions have submitted 52 motions for the waiver of immunity of judges and prosecutors, to which there was evidence justifying suspicion of communist crimes, consisting in the use of repressive measures by illegal imprisonment of democratic opposition activists.

Before the establishment of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court, 38 such motions were filed, of which none were granted. It should be emphasised that the lack of consent for prosecutors or judges to be held criminally liable is an obstacle to conducting investigations, which should be discontinued in such a situation.

In the period following the establishment of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court, 15 such motions have been submitted, and six of them have been legally examined, with five considered.

In cases of unlawful acts of judges and prosecutors, the Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation receives notifications from wronged parties, associations and third parties, in which a motion to initiate criminal proceedings in this category of cases is formulated. None of these notices remained without the prosecutor’s reaction. Essential information sources in these cases are also collections of data and archival materials kept in the Institute of National Remembrance. They often constitute the basis for initiating investigations.

Current activities of the Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation

At present, the Branch Commissions for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation are conducting several dozen investigations concerning the illegal deprivation of freedom by judges and prosecutors of the military justice system of people who opposed the introduction of martial law in Poland and who protested against the communist authorities in any form.

At present, further materials concerning 143 cases of this category have been handed over to the prosecutors of these Commissions to take a trial stance.

Examples of sentences from the period of martial law

The materials collected in these cases justify the suspicion that the wronged persons were unlawfully deprived of freedom because their behaviour did not fulfil the features of the acts they were charged with. Their actions were limited to expressing opinions on political decisions of the then leadership of the state, which was the right of every citizen.

It is worth presenting, obviously, in a nutshell, some examples of judgements of military courts that were passed in cases submitted to Branch Commissions to illustrate the issue presented today, for instance

In 1982, the Naval Court in Gdynia sentenced a 23-year-old inhabitant of Gdańsk to 4 years imprisonment since in June 1982, in Gdańsk, he had hand-painted the inscription "Down with the Commune" on the walls of buildings in one of the streets. The Court stated that in this way, the defendant "humiliated the system of the Polish People's Republic".

The same Naval Court, also in 1982, sentenced an engine driver of a diesel locomotive in the Port of Gdańsk to two years imprisonment. The man started the sound signal of this locomotive for one minute, with which - according to the Court - he publicly incited to disobedience in the form of a strike and counteracting the laws in force during martial law.

In 1982, the Naval Court in Gdynia handed down a sentence of 3 years imprisonment to a teacher of Agricultural Technical School in Gdańsk, who read out the Ideological Declaration of Confederation of Independent Poland to his students during lessons, which - according to the Court - was aimed at causing public unrest and riots.

The Naval Court in Gdynia sentenced an employee of one of the companies in the Tricity, who on 14 December 1981, in the office of the company's director, in the presence of other employees, stated that, quote: "The chairman of WRON (Citizens' Militia Committee for National Liberation), General Wojciech Jaruzelski is a prime minister of doubtful quality, and the decisions of WRON cannot concern him and the Union' Solidarity', because they are illegal". The Court stated that the statement could cause public unrest and riots, and, what is more, the perpetrator "insulted the supreme state authorities".

In 1982 the court of the Pomeranian Military District sentenced a 25-year-old inhabitant of Zduńska Wola to 1-year imprisonment. The person, using a previously prepared stencil, made inscriptions with the words "December 81 - we will not forget" on an advertising pole, a shop window and a cemetery wall. The Court decided that the inscriptions "could weaken the defensive readiness of the People's Republic of Poland".

The Military Garrison Court in Zielona Góra sentenced a man to 1 year and six months of imprisonment. In January 1982, in Gubin, he placed a bristol board cap, which he had made earlier, with an emblem of a fascist eagle painted on it, on the car bumper. The Court found that the defendant insulted and mocked the supreme body of the People's Republic of Poland, which - according to the Court - was the Military Council of National Salvation.

The quoted judgements, made by Military Courts, complement the presented statistical data and allow for a real demonstration of the matter which the Institute of National Remembrance had to deal with.