Wojciech Czuchnowski is a journalist of one of the biggest Polish dailies “Gazeta Wyborcza”. In June 2010 his newspaper published an article in which it was suggested that he could have been wire-taped by the special services for 17 days in 2007. The services were said to had been wire-tapping Czuchnowski as a part of a secret investigation “CELE”. This investigation was conducted in order to decide whether there were preparations for a media provocation aimed at two members of the Law and Justice Party and an attempt at an assassination of one of the ministers.
The case in which Czuchnowski was declared a victim concerns the misuse of authority by the special services in the CELE investigation.
The prosecutors twice remitted the proceedings in the case claiming that no provision was abused and there exist no grounds to level charges.
On Monday January 3 2011 the court in Warsaw decided that the rights of Wojciech Czuchnowski were infringed.
After the judgement was announced, the journalist said he hoped to get access to the files and learn the actual scale of what took place. Czuchnowski filed the case because he had evidence that his phone was wire-taped for two weeks in a way that was not in conformity with the police procedures. As a victim Wojciech Czuchnowski has now the right to access some of the collected data and appeal against the decision about the remission of the case.
