Dominik Tarczyński’s late-night apology. MEP loses lawsuit against Open Dialogue Foundation

Before midnight on Friday 3 January, MEP Dominik Tarczyński published a post apologising to the Open Dialogue Foundation and its President Lyudmyla Kozlovska, whom he had accused of laundering Russian money. The apology is the result of the final court judgement made on 20 December 2024 (the Court of Appeal in Warsaw rejected Tarczyński’s appeal). Tarczyński lost the first-instance trial against the Foundation in the summer of 2022.

However, the MEP has so far failed to hand over the compensation of PLN 10,000 imposed by the court, together with interest and legal costs.

Internet users started to share Tarczyński’s apology en masse, drawing attention to the disrespectful – in their opinion – behaviour related to the apology’s timing. It was published to coincide with the beginning of the long weekend ending the holiday season. Before the publication of the apology, the MEP blocked the accounts of the Foundation, its President Lyudmyla Kozlovska and her husband and one of the organisation’s leaders Bartosz Kramek on the website X.

Lyudmyla Kozlovska, “These cowardly apologies cannot repair the harm and damage we have suffered as a result of the slander by Tarczyński and his colleagues. Tarczyński stands out among them because he speaks English and abuses his mandate to smear inconvenient organisations far beyond Poland’s borders. Pursuing one’s rights through the courts is not effective. In fact, we need better mechanisms to ensure that courts deliver judgements faster and that compensation for damages is truly adequate to the malicious intent of the perpetrators, as well as the scale and seriousness of such violations.”

Bartosz Kramek, “He lied, he lost, he apologised, and he will pay. Dominik Tarczyński has officially joined the ranks of the judicially recognised slanderers who made criminals and Russian agents out of us with a sense of impunity. There’s no power, no honour, only the responsibility remains. My only regret is that it is so symbolic”.

The Foundation sued Tarczyński in 2019 over an interview on the programme “Conflict Zone” on the German television channel Deutsche Welle, during which words were said that violated their personal rights.

The Foundation has so far also won lawsuits against, among others, Maciej Wąsik (final judgment), Patryk Jaki, Joachim Brudziński, Tomasz Sakiewicz (twice, one final judgment), Witold Waszczykowski (final judgment), and TVP.

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