The case was described, among others, by the gazeta.pl website. It concerns Arkadiusz Sz., an active official from Opole, a former adviser to the Opole Voivode and a former Law and Justice politician. According to the outlet, since 1997 Sz. has committed 36 traffic offences. What is more, the man had been driving a car without a driving licence for 12 years. (He was stopped seven times).

Gazeta.pl:

Witnesses cited by the “Fakty” journalist [TVN]claim that, despite not having a driving licence, the official drove a car and parked in the car park in front of his workplace.

Interestingly—as the aforementioned website reports—Sz. was also… a member of a commission examining candidates for driving instructors.

What may be even more surprising is that prosecutor Marek Śledziona, head of the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lwówek Śląski (and previously a prosecutor at the District Prosecutor’s Office in Bolesławiec), sought… to discontinue the proceedings. Gazeta.pl:

“We maintain that if we give him a chance in the form of a conditional discontinuance of the proceedings, he will comply with the law,” he argued before the court [...]. At the same time, the prosecutor sought a one-year driving ban and a financial penalty of PLN 10,000.

In turn, the wp.pl website reported:

Śledziona argued that [...] in Arkadiusz Sz.’s case, the social harmfulness of the act was minor. “The defendant has never been convicted, is socially active and enjoys a good reputation. If we give him a chance, he will comply with the law,” he said.

The court rejected prosecutor Śledziona’s motion. The former politician will answer for his actions before the court.

The minister and prosecutor general Zbigniew Ziobro responds

According to Wirtualna Polska, the minister of justice and Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro ordered an explanatory investigation to determine why the Lwówek prosecutor’s office made such a decision.

“I believe that the prosecution service must always act in a principled and decisive manner in every case. If this does not happen in any situation, regardless of whom it concerns, I will always take decisive action,” Minister Ziobro said in an interview with TVN24.

Details at Wirtualna Polska.

What does the prosecution service say?

The istotne.pl portal contacted Marek Śledziona directly. The prosecutor referred us to the District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra.

Prosecutor Tomasz Czułowski, spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra, explains:

The provision penalising the driving of a motor vehicle without the authorisation to drive has been in force since May 2015. Previously, such conduct did not constitute a crime; it was an offence which, under the Code of Petty Offences, is expunged after one year. Arkadiusz Sz. had previously been stopped, but under the law this was still only an offence. The prosecution therefore could not take into account, when formulating the charges, offences committed by Arkadiusz Sz. before May 2015.

After that date, Arkadiusz Sz. was stopped by a police patrol in connection with driving a vehicle only once. However, the man admitted committing this act and stated that he had also driven a car on other occasions. We therefore charged him with driving a car without authorisation an unspecified number of times between May 2015 and 2019. Beyond any doubt, only one such case, from 2019, was proven; the others resulted solely from the suspect’s admission.

He adds:

As for the information that the man parked by the Voivodeship Office in Opole, Arkadiusz Sz. claimed that he had not been driving alone and that another person had been driving the car.

All these circumstances led the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lwówek Śląski to conclude that, in this situation, a motion for conditional discontinuance of the proceedings would be sufficient. This does not mean that the case ends with a discontinuance; the man remains charged. We sought the longest possible probation period, namely two years, a one-year ban on his driving any vehicles in land traffic, as well as the payment of PLN 10,000 as a monetary contribution, which in practice constitutes a more severe penalty than that usually imposed by courts in cases of this type.

And he emphasises:

Another circumstance supporting this decision was the fact that, in the meantime, Arkadiusz Sz. had administratively regained his driving licence, and that—apart from the improper parking incident in 2019—his conduct consisting of driving despite having lost his authorisation was not connected with any other violation of the law.

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