by Martin Banks
The newly elected European Parliament will be asked to examine alleged abuse of preventive detention measures by "politically motivated" Polish tax police and judicial authorities.
A former UK Europe Minister says the practice does "serious damage" to Polish businesses and the country`s international image.
The move follows the backlash against
European Union immigrant workers which has seen the rise of populist
nationalist political parties in
Parties like the Front National in
These include Polish workers who,it is
claimed, are unable to find work in
This "secretive" network is known as Uklad in Polish.
The use of preventive detentions to arrest and imprison people without charge has already been condemned by Transparency International and the Council of Europe.
Now MEPs, including new Polish deputies,
will be asked to examine the problem and make recommendations to the European
Commission for advice and if necessary action against
The issue will be the subject of a conference at Brussels Press Club on 9 July.
Letters will also be sent to Polish, German
and UK MEPs and the media in
The allegations have come to the fore following the case of Marek Kmetko, a Polish-born businessman.
The Polish tax police opened an investigation into Mr Kmetko, accusing his wife of money laundering, a move he says was "just a political attack against me."
In September 2010, the Wroclaw Prosecutor’s Office asked the German police to investigate the Kmetko´s and their schoolgirl daughter for alleged money laundering.
The German police did as requested and
ordered searches of all the Kmetko accounts and paper held at his head office
in
But the prosecution authorities in
Mr Kmetko`s businesses were raised and one
of the women they arrested late in 2013 was Dagmara Natkaniec. She lives in
Mr Kmetko said, "Nonetheless she was detained and her daughter has been without a mother for several months. She is willing to post bail and report to the relevant police authorities and return to her duties as a mother but the Wroclaw Prosecutor refuses this humanitarian gesture."
Polish justice ministry figures show that between 2001 and 2007 about 90 per cent of the public prosecutor´s applications for pre trial detention were allowed by the courts.
According to law firm Clifford Chance prosecutors and courts impose pre trial detention automatically, "without providing adequate justification."
Organisations such as the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe and Transparency International have said in the past that the Polish tax police system acts "beyond the rules" of normal European Union law and order.
The
European Court of Human Rights has also criticised
This echoes concerns raised by the CoE in a
2007 resolution encouraging
A TI source said, "Businessmen can be held in preventive detention for months at a time without any charges laid so that their businesses are utterly destroyed while the executives are rotting in prison. The object is very clear to force money out of businesses whether legally or not and to ensure that the tax police get their own private cut."
The tax authorities in
The two cases involving Sandra Natkaniec
and Mr Kmetko has been taken up by Denis MacShane, a former Europe Minister in
the
"One thing is certain, that having
survived the pressure of communist bureaucracy and then some of the more
corrupt and disreputable political-bureaucratic practices that were on display
in
Mr MacShane added, "There is a wider
interest at stake. The whole of the rest
of Europe needs to see
"This has given rise to what the
German Finance Minister calls “fascism” in
"The Polish authorities need to ensure
that