Prominent Polish journalist Piotr Najsztub will not be punished for running over an elderly woman on a pedestrian crossing and driving without a license, a Warsaw district court has decided.
The deputy minister of justice, Sebastian Kaleta, has criticized the verdict, stating that “this scandalous decree has brought about a serious crisis of trust towards the Polish judiciary.”
Najsztub, who is associated with the opposition liberal media, ran over a 77-year-old woman on a pedestrian crossing in 2017.
Although tests proved he was not driving under the influence, his car had not passed important technical tests and he did not have the required liability insurance. Najsztub was also not eligible to even drive a vehicle after his license was taken away in 2009.
Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz:
Such verdicts completely destroy the trust in the so-called justice system.
The Warsaw district court declared that the new verdict was the only legitimate decision. The court explained the verdict by claiming that at the moment of the accident, visibility was obscured.
“Unsurprisingly, this issue is causing huge controversy. A person without a driving license gets into a car that did not undergo necessary technical tests and didn’t have insurance, and later runs over a woman on a pedestrian crossing and is not held responsible,” Kaleta pointed out.
Publicist Rafał Ziemkiewicz also commented on the matter, criticizing the verdict as an “absolute scandal” and echoed the deputy minister’s words, saying that “such verdicts completely destroy the trust in the so-called justice system.”
