Co-founders of the Museum of Memory and Identity of St John Paul II in Toruń are the Lux Veritatis Foundation and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The Ministry of Culture filed with the territory Court in Warsaw a suit against the foundation and the museum to establish the nullity of the agreement to make cultural institutions.
According to Lux Veritatis, the MKiDN suit ‘was based on a lie and contained many errors’. On 23 December 2024, the territory Court in Warsaw issued an order to which he returned the full suit to the Ministry. As it says, “because of the crucial shortcomings of this document”.
‘The activities undertaken by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage shall stay in force, in accordance with the administrative and judicial way established in the State of law. A weekend strategy for the PiS organization to shout won't change that. The Ministry is active in the public interest and in the transparency of public spending,” wrote the MKiDN position submitted on Friday by the Ministry of Public Administration.
The Ministry recalls that it "finances the current activities of the museum on the basis of an annex to the agreement to make the Museum of Memory and Identity, signed on 19.10.2023 by the then minister Piotr Gliński".
"An yearly entity grant from MKiDN amounts to PLN 15 million. In his statement, the Foundation sparingly mentions that the value of the contract exceeds a million zlotys — let us rectify it — more than 15 times. Let's talk about facts. In the Museum of Memory and Identity, the control of the Chamber of taxation Administration was carried out, the control of the NIK is ongoing and the prosecution proceedings are ongoing. Court proceedings are a substance of time," we read.
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At the same time, the MKiDN stresses that "party representatives of the Law and Justice organization will not escape settlements".
According to a message from Lux Veritatis, “the suit indicates that the property usage contract on which the Museum was placed expired on 31 December 2022, so the Museum no longer has the right to usage the land. It's evidently a lie. This thesis is put forward by the Ministry erstwhile in May 2023 it received notarial acts which extend the right to usage this property for subsequent years.’
In the Foundation's assessment, the return of the court to the Ministry of Justice "will not end the case", and its "essential nonsubjective is to liquidate the Museum". The concerns of Lux Veritatis representatives are raised, among others, by "the very way of representing the ministry in this matter". "It should be represented by the lawyer General, as the value of the contract exceeds the amount of PLN million (provided by Article 7(2) of the Law on the lawyer General of the Republic of Poland)" — was stated.
In November 2024, NIK controllers at the request of the regional prosecutor in Rzeszów began control at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The aim is to exceed the privileges of the head of MKiDN at the conclusion in 2018 of an agreement with the Lux Veritatis Foundation to make the Museum of Memory and Identity. The ultimate Audit Chamber then informed PAP that the audit would cover the period from 2018 and is scheduled to end in January 2025. NIK explores 2 areas: compliance with the rules for granting grants from the state budget erstwhile concluding a contract to make a museum and the appropriate supervision and accounting of the usage of this grant.
