In its decision, the ECtHR focused on procedural violations noted in its previous judgements.
Upon the entry into force of the 1997 Lustration Act, the applicant in the Zabłocki case, at the time a member of the supervisory board of a public radio station, was obliged to make a lustration statement. Six years after he made the statement, Mr. Zabłocki was informed by the Public Interest Commissioner that there was reasonable suspicion that his statement was false.
The Commissioner filed a successful motion with the Appellate Court in Warsaw to launch lustration proceedings against Mr. Zabłocki. The hearings of these lustration proceedings were closed to the public. The Appellate Court in Warsaw, deciding the case in the first instance, ruled that the applicant was a secret and intentional collaborator of the Communist security forces and as such submitted a false lustration statement. All the archive documents constituting evidence in the case were classified, meaning that the Applicant could access them only at the Confidential Office of the court.
The second-instance court affirmed the Appellate Court’s decision. The applicant filed a cassation complaint before the Supreme Court which was dismissed as manifestly groundless. The decision resulted in the imposition of a ten-year ban on the applicant from exercising any public function.
According to the ECtHR, the accused’s effective participation in his criminal trial must include the right to compile notes in order to facilitate his defence, regardless of whether or not he is represented by counsel.
The ECtHR held that the applicant’s ability to prove that the contacts he had had with the communist-era secret services did not amount to intentional and secret collaboration had been severely curtailed. The Court decided that, in practice, an unrealistic burden had been placed on the applicant, resulting in violation of the principle of equality of arms.
The case was a part of the ‘Human Rights and Settlements with the Past’ Programme.
