Success of our client!

A client of our Law Firm – the director of a public institution – was charged with improper performance of his duties as a public official, including, among other things, issuing documents certifying untrue facts and having legal significance (including under Article 271 § 1 of the Criminal Code). The case concerned alleged repeated falsification of data contained in the institution’s documentation, which was said to have lasted for almost a year.

The court of first instance fully agreed with the prosecutor’s position and convicted the client of the crimes attributed to him. In addition to a fine, a very severe penalty was imposed on the director in the form of a ban on holding managerial positions in public institutions.

Attorney Bartłomiej Pietruszka appealed against the above judgment, requesting that it be reviewed by the court of appeal. He alleged that the findings of the court of first instance were arbitrary and not supported by the evidence gathered.

After six years of criminal proceedings, a final judgment favourable to the client was handed down. The Regional Court, agreeing with the position of Bartłomiej Pietruszka, recognised and confirmed that there were indeed no grounds for convicting the director for a number of acts he was accused of and, as a result, removed a number of acts from the description of the offence initially attributed to the defendant.

In this situation, given that the Court of Appeal found that the case involved only minor errors on the part of the director, it refused to convict him, limiting itself to a conditional discontinuation of the criminal proceedings in their entirety, which means that the client is not listed in the register of convicted persons, has not been deprived of his right to hold public office, and will not incur any penalty.