“In my deep belief, the Prosecutor’s Office should be (re)created from the foundations, from district and district prosecutor’s offices, which handle over 99 percent of criminal cases, and not from the facade and roof,” wrote Korneluk in a summary of his concept of the functioning of the prosecutor’s office, which he submitted to the MS team as part of the competition.
What changes does prosecutor Korneluk announce?
As he assessed, in recent years, in relation to the prosecutor’s office, “the focus on political expectations has led to the abandonment of tasks both in terms of comprehensive management of the institution and the implementation of tasks – guarding the rule of law and prosecuting crimes.”
“We should break with the pattern of thinking that the effectiveness and quality of a prosecutor’s work is determined by the number of people temporarily arrested in proceedings supervised by him. In this respect, I will recommend that the attention of superiors be increased in assessing the validity of prosecutors’ requests for pre-trial detention,” he announced. among others in its concept Korneluk.
Prosecutor Korneluk – who is he?
Proc. Korneluk has over 30 years of experience and has worked in managerial positions at all levels for over 13 years. He graduated in law from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1993. In 1995, he completed his prosecutor’s apprenticeship and in January 1996, he began his internship at the Gdańsk-Północ District Prosecutor’s Office, which he completed at the Warsaw-Mokotów District Prosecutor’s Office. In January 1998, he was appointed prosecutor of this unit.
In 2000, he started working at the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, where from 2001 he was the Head of the Department, Department VI for Organized Crime. He dealt with, among others: drug crime cases. He was one of the first prosecutors to use evidence from a crown witness, and as a prosecutor he participated in the well-known case of robbery and murder at Kredyt Bank in 2001.
In the following years Korneluk he served, among others, functions of the Warsaw-Praga Północ district prosecutor, the Warsaw-Praga district prosecutor, and – in 2010-2016 – the appellate prosecutor in Warsaw.
The competition for national prosecutor was not the first competition in which he took part. After 1990 functions Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General were separated for six years, and the only head of the prosecutor’s office separated from the minister during this period was Andrzej Seremet, whose term of office began in 2010 and expired at the end of March 2016. After Seremet’s term of office ended, among others: before then National Council of the Judiciary – a competition for his successor was held in October 2015, and he was one of the candidates Korneluk.
“I am ready to strengthen the apolitical nature and independence of the prosecutor’s office,” he assured during public hearings during that competition.
Korneluk demoted during the PiS government
However, Seremet’s successor was not elected in this manner, because the parliament decided to re-merge the functions of the head of the ministry and the prosecutor’s office, and Zbigniew Ziobro returned to the position of PG, which he previously held in 2005-2007.
Meanwhile, following PiS’s election victory in the fall of 2015, Korneluk was among the prosecutors demoted by the new prosecutor’s office authorities. From March 2016 to December 2023, he worked at the Warsaw-Śródmieście District Prosecutor’s Office, where he also performed front-line duties.
For example, in 2017, before the Warsaw district court, he accused former priest Jacek M. regarding an insulting entry regarding a member of parliament Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus. The accused then defended himself by saying that “Scheuring-Wielgus sees a greater danger in Polish patriotism and nationalism complementary to Christian personalism than in terrorists.” “This Christian personalism sounds really terrible from the defendant’s mouth,” he replied in the courtroom Korneluk. M. was then sentenced to half a year of restriction of liberty, and Korneluk he told PAP that the verdict was right.
In those years Korneluk was a co-founder Lex Super Omnia Prosecutors’ Association and acted in its authority. During the government PiS disciplinary proceedings were pending once morest him for several years as he was considered critical of the prosecutor’s office Ziobro Lex Super Omnia announcement from 2017. After the last elections, he was acquitted by the prosecutor’s disciplinary court.
Changes at the top of the prosecutor’s office took place in mid-January this year. Minister Bodnarduring a meeting with the national prosecutor Dariusz Barski, handed him a document stating that his reinstatement to active service on February 16, 2022 by the previous prosecutor general, Zbigniew Ziobro, “was made in violation of the applicable regulations and did not produce legal effects.” Pursuant to the Prime Minister’s decision, Prosecutor Jacek Bilewicz became the acting national prosecutor.
A month later, Bodnar entrusted Korneluk with the position of deputy acting national prosecutor Jacek Bilewicz. Candidates might be submitted in the competition for national prosecutor until mid-February. Apart from Korneluk, four other candidates applied: Katarzyna Kwiatkowska, prosecutor of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw, delegated to the National Prosecutor’s Office; District Prosecutor in Gorzów Wielkopolski Agnieszka Leszczyńska; prosecutor of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Kraków, Jacek Skała, delegated to the National Prosecutor’s Office, and Ewa Wrzosek, prosecutor of the Warsaw-Mokotów District Prosecutor’s Office.
“Korneluk presented the most clear, coherent and responsible vision of the prosecutor’s office at all levels,” said Deputy Minister of Justice Maria Ejchart, chairwoman of the Ministry of Justice team that recommended Korneluk.
The current opposition does not agree with the dismissal of prosecutor Dariusz Barski. President Andrzej Duda also said that he remains of the opinion that the national prosecutor is Dariusz Barski, who “was not effectively removed from his position.” In mid-January, the President submitted a request to the Constitutional Tribunal regarding the dispute over competences between the President of the Republic of Poland, the Prime Minister and the Polish People’s Republic.
The president has not issued an opinion on the candidacy yet Korneluka. The deputy head of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, Piotr Ćwik, explained at the end of February that there would be no such opinion if the case was referred to the Constitutional Tribunal.
“There is an ongoing competence dispute over issues related to the office of the national prosecutor. The case has been referred to the Constitutional Tribunal, and in accordance with the Act on the Tribunal, all activities should be suspended for the duration of the competence dispute. If any are being implemented, the president has a clear answer here. They are illegal and once morest the law,” said Ćwik in the PAP Studio.
Korneluk in his concept presented to the Ministry of Justice team, he pointed out that “following eight years of extreme politicization of the prosecutor’s office and subordination of its activities to political or even party interests” there appears “the problem of broadly understood +accounts+, which is demanded today not only by the prosecutorial community, but above all by citizens “.
“However, I emphasize that there is no other option than to carry out settlements based on procedures and standards set by law,” he said. Korneluk. (PAP)
Authors: Marcin Jabłoński, Malwina Tkacz
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