Warsaw appeals court overturns order forcing Zbigniew Ziobro before Pegasus committee

The ruling

The Court of Appeal in Warsaw has overturned an order that allowed police to bring former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro forcibly before the Sejm's Pegasus inquiry committee. The Warsaw Regional Court granted the detention and forced transfer on 16 September 2025, in a decision issued by judge Magdalena Wójcik at a closed session. Ziobro's lawyers appealed, and the appeals court found the original decision was issued too early and was therefore unfounded. The new ruling is final, and no further appeal is available. Judge Ewa Leszczyńska-Furta, the criminal-law spokesperson of the Court of Appeal, confirmed the decision to RMF FM.

The grounds for the decision

The court's reasoning rests on Ziobro's attendance record. According to the reasoning cited by RMF FM reporter Tomasz Skory, Ziobro had not failed to appear without justification on all eight of the hearing dates set for him. On that basis the appeals court concluded the order was premature and therefore unjustified. Ziobro, now a PiS member of parliament, had been summoned in connection with the use of Pegasus spyware to monitor, among others, political opponents in Poland.

Detention and questioning

Police detained Ziobro at Warsaw's Chopin Airport on 29 September 2025 and brought him straight to the Sejm, where the Pegasus committee questioned him. Sources disagree on the length of the session, with one putting it at about eight hours and another at about five. During the questioning Ziobro said he had initiated the purchase of the Pegasus system. He added that the final decision to buy it with money from the Justice Fund belonged to Michał Woś, then deputy justice minister, who was aware of his general intention on the matter.

What the ruling opens

The decision opens the way for Ziobro to seek compensation and damages for unlawful deprivation of liberty. He may also claim for infringement of personal rights, since his detention and forced transfer were widely covered by the media. Lawyer Adam Gomoła argues the overturned order was the prosecution's main argument that Ziobro might not show up when summoned. He says this was set out in a prosecutors' motion submitted by Waldemar Żurek, which sought to lift Ziobro's immunity and allow his arrest. Gomoła wrote on social media:

“The lifting of immunity opened the way to a motion for arrest.”

Another court win

RMF FM notes this is not Ziobro's only recent court success. In September the Voivodeship Administrative Court overturned a Mazovian voivode's decision to invalidate his passport. Judge Małgorzata Jarecka said in a statement published on the court's website that the court's oral reasons accepted the key complaint about the improper delivery of the notice opening proceedings. Taken together, the rulings give the former minister a run of favourable decisions, RMF FM notes.