At the end of 2020, the istotne.pl editorial team asked two hospitals in Bolesławiec about priests’ earnings. The district facility on Jeleniogórska Street, headed by Kamil Barczyk, immediately provided a full response. Janina Hulacka, director of the Provincial Hospital for the Nervously and Mentally Ill on Tysiąclecia Avenue, refused to provide information about earnings, the number of hours worked, or the parish the priest came from.

The hospital maintained that disclosing information about the parish, remuneration (when there is one employee in a given position), as well as the number of hours worked in a given month by an employee who is not a public figure could constitute a violation of that employee’s privacy.

The editor-in-chief of istotne.pl, Krzysztof Gwizdała, filed a complaint with the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Wrocław over the failure to disclose public information. Gwizdała argued that the obligation to disclose the information followed from one of the fundamental principles of public finance management—the principle of transparency of public finances set out in Article 33(1) of the Public Finance Act. He also referred to the position of the Supreme Administrative Court in its judgment of 14 February 2020, case no. I OSK 578/19: “Information about public assets constitutes public information. The remuneration of all office employees is included in these assets.”

Judges Ewa Kamieniecka, Bogumiła Kalinowska and Tomasz Świetlikowski dismissed Krzysztof Gwizdała’s complaint. They found that, since only one chaplain was employed at the hospital, it was impossible to anonymize the data requested by Krzysztof Gwizdała. In the opinion of these judges, a chaplain employed at a hospital could not be considered a person performing a public function either.

In mid-2021, the association Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska joined the case of Gwizdała v. the Hospital. The association safeguards transparency and access to public information. In August 2021, through the law office of legal counsel Izabela Kraśna, Watchdog filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court.

The cassation appeal alleged two errors in the VAC judgment:

  • an incorrect interpretation of the provisions, consisting in the VAC’s erroneous assumption that the public information requested by the complainant concerning the chaplain’s remuneration, information about the time worked by the chaplain in November 2020, and information about which parish the chaplain came from was subject to restriction on grounds of the privacy of natural persons, even though the requested information concerned the assets of the healthcare facility and did not permit the identification of a specific natural person;
  • the Court’s erroneous finding that a chaplain employed by a hospital had no connection with performing a public function, even though the fact that chaplains’ work in hospitals constitutes implementation of the Act of 17 May 1989 on the Relationship between the State and the Catholic Church in the Republic of Poland justifies the conclusion that, in performing their duties, they carry out broadly understood public functions

In October 2021, the hospital responded to the cassation appeal and upheld its position.

The Supreme Administrative Court considered the case in April 2023. It set aside the challenged VAC judgment and referred the case back to the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Wrocław for reconsideration.

The Supreme Administrative Court argued:

Implementing Krzysztof Gwizdała’s request of 15 December 2020 for access to public information under points 4 and 5 consists in disclosing the amount of remuneration paid for a specified position, without indicating the personal data of a specific person. The public information requested is not the remuneration received by a specific person, but the amount spent from public funds to maintain a given position. Therefore, information about the priest’s remuneration and the number of hours he worked in November 2020 (as information allowing the employee’s hourly rate to be determined) does not violate the priest’s privacy, even when he is the only priest employed at the hospital. These questions do not directly seek to establish the priest’s identity. Consequently, the fact that only one priest is employed at the hospital cannot constitute grounds for restricting access to information about public funds spent.

In mid-October 2023, the Voivodeship Administrative Court reconsidered Krzysztof Gwizdała’s complaint, with the participation of Watchdog Polska, and set aside two points of the decision issued by the hospital management in Bolesławiec, while ordering reimbursement of Gwizdała’s court proceedings costs.

On 8 November 2023, the Provincial Hospital for the Nervously and Mentally Ill sent the istotne.pl editorial team information about the priest’s earnings.

The monthly remuneration received by the chaplain as of 30 November 2020 amounted to PLN 2,464.50. I also inform you that in November 2020, the chaplain worked 108 hours.

Director of the Provincial Hospital for the Nervously and Mentally Ill, Jarosław Karbowski

Thus, after almost three years of court battles, the court agreed with us that the earnings of hospital chaplains are public information, and we received information about the priest’s remuneration. Finally, let us add that November 2020 was a time of the pandemic; hospital visits were severely restricted, and often even relatives could not say goodbye to a dying person. We therefore wonder how the priest worked 108 hours at that time?! Perhaps you know and will write in the comments?

We encourage you to provide financial support to the association Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska.