Marcin Bogdan: Enslavement with a Mystery

Legal secrets can be divided into the following secrets:

• State - the disclosure of which could consequence in a safety hazard or

interests of Poland

• service - available only to persons with circumstantial public functions
• professional - concerning the professions of public trust, specified as doctor, lawyer, journalist
• enterprises - economic, method and organisational, which have economical value

and are not known in public

• proceedings - concerning criminal, civilian or administrative proceedings
• operational - related to the activities of the services, police or prosecutors during the activities

operational measures to defend methods and sources of information

All these types of legal secrets seem natural and legitimate. punishment for exposing them does not rise social objections either. But there are situations where there is an impression that keeping a secret does not service to defend the safety of Poland, it does not service to defend methods and sources of information, but it simply serves to hide the truth. Do we not have this sense of concealing the fact erstwhile we hear that the United Kingdom rejects for another 50 years the release of papers concerning the unexplained death of the Polish Prime Minister and Chief Leader, General Władysław Sikorski? Do we not have this sense of concealing the fact erstwhile after 15 years of ongoing investigation into the Smolensk disaster, we hear from close victims that they have cognition of certain facts but cannot uncover it, precisely due to the mystery of the ongoing proceeding? Margaret Wassermann said: “Today, decision-makers and the judiciary are in a comfortable position to say what they want, and families of Smolensk disaster victims are bound by the mystery of the investigation”. And her father’s autopsy said: “Because of the mystery of the investigation, I cannot comment on it”. Do we not have specified a sense of concealing the fact erstwhile 41 years after the execution of Blessed Fr Jerzy Popiełuszko, we hear from people who have access to the files of the ongoing investigation that if existing materials and recordings were revealed, the public would have learned about many matters, many authorities would have fallen and crucial passages of the fresh past of Poland should be verified?

Are these the natural consequences of apparent regulations, or are we subject to a conscious process of enslavement of mystery? The answer comes to itself erstwhile we look at the legal regulations and the changes introduced to the work to respect legal secrets. A good example are the records, erstwhile and current, Code of Ethics of Legal Advisors (KERP) which specify the work of professional secrecy. erstwhile the secret of professional legal counsel was only covered "What the customerHe wouldn't uncover to anyone else.". specified a civilian form of confessional mystery, it would seem, nothing to add. However, the National gathering of Legal Advisors has changed these provisions and now Article 14(1) of the CERP states that "Legal counsel is obliged to keep secret everything he has learned in connection with the provision of legal assistance". This means that now professional secrecy includes all informationthe legal counsel obtains during or in connection with the provision of legal aid, regardless of their form or origin. Worse, the legal advisor is bound by the secrecy for life and unconditionally, as referred to in Article 14(2) of the CERP: "The work of professional secrecy shall not be limited in time and shall besides proceed after the end of the legal relation between legal counsel and the client. It may not be revoked either with the consent of the client or at his request“. Thus, even if the client allows the counsellor to disclose certain facts publicly, the counsellor inactive has a work of silence.

It's no longer a natural protection of legal secrets, it's enslavement of society with a secret. There is no fight for your rights here – as the poet put it beautifully – there is simply a fight for your soul.

Mr Bogdan

Before

Before the lightning strikes,

Before the sirens wake you at night,

Before our home is destroyed,

Your soul is at stake.

There's no request for more words.

A wise man knows that for nothing,

To win the war, Sun Tzu said,

There's no request to change boundaries.

Grzegorz Nowicki