At the September 25 session, council members passed a resolution deciding not to consider Linus Lewandowski’s complaint about the lack of security for the parade during the Ceramics Festival.

Linus Lewandowski sent his complaint to the City Office by email. He also signed it. The office therefore had his email address and personal details. Lewandowski even received a reply at that address stating that his complaint had been forwarded to the city council.

Meanwhile, according to the council members, the letter had formal deficiencies.

“Every complaint that is submitted and addressed to an authority must... there must be a specified addressee (the sender—editor’s note), meaning the first and last name (...) and the address of the submitter. If these two conditions are not met, such a petition is left unexamined,” argued Grzegorz Korczak, coordinator of the City Office’s legal advisers’ team.

“This provision is absolutely binding. (...) The committee could not examine this complaint,” said Teresa Szyjkowska, head of the Complaints, Requests and Petitions Committee of Bolesławiec City Council.

The council members unanimously voted to leave the complaint unexamined.

However, judgments of administrative courts (WSA) clearly state that an email address is an address within the meaning of the regulations cited by councillor Korczak and councillor Szyjkowska.

“Okay, we’re going to the WSA,” Linus Lewandowski briefly concludes. The city council will therefore face the administrative court.

How does the administrative court address the issue of an address?

When it is clear who filed the complaint and from which email address, the requirement to provide a traditional address (without even allowing for the possibility of remedying this omission) is excessively formalistic and consequently leads to a significant restriction of the civic right expressed in Article 63 of the Constitution in conjunction with Article 237 et seq. of the Code of Administrative Procedure.

This is an excerpt from a 2018 judgment of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Gorzów Wielkopolski (II SA/Go 508/18).

What Linus Lewandowski complained about

Linus Lewandowski, who took part in the parade opening the Bolesławiec festival, filed an official complaint on August 19 with the mayor and the head of the cultural centre.

This is what part of his complaint said:

During our march—as a registered group participating in the parade—we were attacked by a group of FC Bolesławiec hooligans. They set off flares, shouted abuse at us and threw bottles in our direction. Our health and lives were at risk. One of the bottles landed very close to a child standing beside us in the crowd of spectators. This incident met with NO response whatsoever from either security staff or the police.

The full text of the letter is available in the report: Complaint about negligence in protecting the Ceramics Festival parade. Roman and Filipowicz remain silent