At a hearing in September 2021, lawyer Tomasz Klukowski, representing councillor Dariusz F., asked the court to request that Bolesławiec City Hall answer where the documents concerning specific entries in the ledgers and errors in entries made by the injured party during the period covered by the indictment were located.

At the hearing on 7 December, the defendant’s lawyer stated that, in his opinion, documents important to the defendant had disappeared from the MZGM headquarters, and therefore moved for copies in his possession to be added to the case. According to the lawyer’s knowledge, the original documents were supposed to have been secured at the company.

We asked the head of the Municipal Housing Management Facility about the matter. “All documents related to the case were handed over to the prosecutor’s office,” said Kazimierz Łomotowski. “We do not have a safe or a strongbox, only a secure cabinet containing employees’ personal documents, in accordance with GDPR requirements. It is located in the human resources department office of the Municipal Housing Management Facility,” the MZGM director stressed.

Prosecutor Sebastian Woźniak, in turn, moved for chat logs from an online messenger to be added to the case; they concerned the injured party’s contact with a prayer group in her parish.

This concerned the earlier testimony of one of the women regarding SMS messages that the injured party allegedly sent to people connected with the parish she belonged to. The witness had learned of the alleged messages by hearsay. She had not seen or received them, and the person who told her about them was said to have deleted them immediately because of their unpleasant content.

The prosecutor submitted the conversation logs so that the court could review their contents.

Open or closed proceedings?

At every hearing, the defendant’s lawyer strongly insists that the press be excluded from the court sessions. Reports of the trial published in the press allegedly have a negative effect on the emotions of the councillor’s closest relatives.

The case is certainly difficult, but it is highly important from a social perspective. It concerns a public figure—a councillor—and touches on an issue important to all employees: workplace bullying and the quality of relationships between superiors and subordinates.

Let us recall that public opinion is also raising an important question in this case: should a councillor hold important positions in a municipal company and employ relatives?