Poland’s already tense political climate hardened further this week after a Warsaw court issued an arrest warrant against former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, one of the most prominent figures of the previous conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government.
Ziobro, who is currently in Hungary under political asylum and international protection, now faces a temporary detention order requested by the National Prosecutor’s Office. For critics of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, the decision reinforces a growing perception that the justice system is being deployed to settle political scores with members of the former PiS cabinet.
On Thursday, February 5th, the District Court for Warsaw-Mokotów ordered Ziobro’s temporary arrest after a hearing that lasted the entire day. The ruling, communicated by his legal team, does not rule on guilt or innocence. Instead, it accepts the prosecution’s request for pre-trial detention on procedural grounds alone.
Defence lawyer Adam Gomoła immediately announced that the decision would be appealed to the Warsaw Regional Court and confirmed that a separate motion had already been filed to suspend its enforcement. Importantly, the court itself acknowledged that it had not examined whether the evidence actually proves the alleged crimes. At this stage, judges stressed, the issue was not culpability but whether formal conditions existed to justify detention.
One detail stood out. The court specified that if Ziobro were detained, he should be transferred directly to a medical facility—an unusual caveat that highlights the exceptional and politically sensitive nature of the case.
From a national warrant to a European pursuit
Prosecutors have made clear that the case will not stop at Poland’s borders. The next procedural steps, they say, include issuing a national wanted notice followed by a European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Piotr Woźniak, who leads the investigation into alleged abuses related to the Justice Fund, said the court had fully endorsed the prosecution’s reasoning, pointing to what he described as a high probability that the offences were committed, as well as risks of flight and interference with the investigation.
Ziobro’s lawyers strongly reject that account. They insist that prosecutors know exactly where their client is and argue that launching an international manhunt serves little legal purpose. In their view, the real objective is political and media-driven: to present a former justice minister as a fugitive and keep the case alive in the public eye.
The affair has acquired an unmistakable international dimension because Ziobro has been granted political asylum in Hungary. Budapest has openly stated that democracy and the rule of law are under strain in Poland, framing its decision as protection against what it considers politically motivated prosecutions of conservative figures.
Ziobro himself has gone further, calling the proceedings a “political show trial” and accusing the Tusk administration of pursuing a vendetta against its predecessors. He faces 26 charges, carrying a potential sentence of up to 25 years in prison, largely linked to the management of the Justice Fund—a state mechanism originally designed to support victims of crime. Critics note that comparable scrutiny has not been applied with the same intensity to politicians aligned with the current governing coalition.
A familiar pattern for PiS supporters
For supporters of the former Law and Justice government, the Ziobro case feels less like an isolated incident and more like part of a broader pattern. Since returning to power, Tusk’s coalition has moved quickly to remove, investigate, or sideline figures associated with the previous administration, presenting these actions as a long-overdue restoration of the rule of law after years of conservative reforms.
Opponents, however, warn that this approach risks blurring the line between accountability and revenge. In Ziobro’s case, defence lawyers cited alleged political pressure on the Warsaw court and unsuccessfully sought to have the proceedings transferred to another jurisdiction or heard by a panel of judges rather than a single magistrate.
As Poland moves closer to a possible European Arrest Warrant, the Ziobro affair is no longer just about one former minister. It has become a test of how deeply politics has penetrated the justice system—and whether legal instruments are being used to uphold the rule of law or to rewrite the balance of power after a bruising change of government.