Wojciech Sadurski
Wojciech Sadurski is a Polish and Australian scholar of constitutional law. As of 2023, he is Challis Professor in Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney and Professor in the Centre for Europe in the University of Warsaw.
Academic career
Sadurski was born on 5 June 1950 in Warsaw; his father was a lawyer, Peasant Battalions major, ZSL deputy to the PRL parlament. Sadurski emigrated to Australia in 1981 and holds dual citizenship. According to Associated Press, Sadurski is "a law professor of international renown". He has written several books on constitutional law and has served as a visiting professor at Yale Law School, New York University Law School, Cardozo Law School, and University of Trento. He first gained tenure at the Department of Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney, then under Alice Erh-Soon Tay. From 1999 to 2009 he was a professor at European University Institute in Florence and, from 2003 to 2006, the dean of the Faculty of Law of the European University Institute. As of 2020, he is Challis Professor in Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney and Professor in the Centre for Europe in the University of Warsaw.Sadurski is on the editorial board of European Law Journal, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and Law and Philosophy Library. Since 2011, he chairs the academic advisory board of Community of Democracies.
Criticism of the Polish government
Sadurski is a vocal critic of the Law and Justice party in Poland, which he describes as autocratic and authoritarian. In 2019, he published a book with Oxford University Press titled "Poland's Constitutional Breakdown". The book was translated into Polish by Anna Wójcik; the Polish edition was published in October 2020. Three cases have been brought against him by the ruling party and those affiliated with it. According to Sadurski, the cases "are totally and unambiguously politically motivated. Further, I believe that they are coordinated and syncronised." PiS has also brought libel cases against other critics of the government.- A member of the [Polish judicial Polish judicial disciplinary panel law|disciplinary panel law|disciplinary panel] of the Polish supreme court opened an investigation against Sadurski at Warsaw University because he called the members of the disciplinary panel "losers".
- The party sued because Sadurski called it an "organized criminal group" that associated itself with neo-Nazis, in relation to the 2018 National Independence Day march which had significant far-right participation. Sadurski commented, "the ruling party enjoys almost unlimited power and very wide material benefits. It lacks only one thing—the privilege of silencing its critics. This lawsuit is an attempt to seize this privilege." He stated that "I used the term organized crime group as a metaphor to describe activities that require synchronization and coordination of the actions of various political and state entities which, according to the constitution, should be separated from each other, but which, in my opinion, led to coordinated actions leading to the transformation of the democratic system into an authoritarian one." He also argued that if he lost the case, "paradoxically, it would confirm the correctness of my diagnosis". Dozens of journalists, members of the opposition, and human rights activists were present at the trial. The case was dismissed by the trial court, but the party appealed the verdict.
- The third case involves Sadurski's reference to "Goebbelsian" media after the assassination of Paweł Adamowicz. Although not named by Sadurski, the state-owned media company Telewizja Polska brought both criminal and civil suits for defamation. As of October 2020, the case is scheduled to be heard in December 2020.