Poland's Palace
Palace Of Justice
Polish Freedom Of Speech Limited Where Human Dignity Involved - Poland's Supreme Court
Warsaw, Poland 22 January 2010 - The Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland upheld a fine of a million PLN against a Polish television station for broadcasting the ridicule of a disabled girl.
Four years ago Kazimiera Szczuka appeared as a guest on the Kuba Wojewódzki Show, which then aired on Polish television station Polsat. Ms Szczuka, a literary critic and television journalist, parodied a presenter on Radio Maryja.
“I am fascinated by a certain character from Radio Maryja. I don’t know what her name is. She is like an old girl, founder of the Childish Playground Rosary Circle. And she speaks with this voice, it has a special melody,” said Ms Szczuka during her television appearance four years ago.
She went on the parody the voice and said, “Let us pray, that God’s mercy flows down on all the children from the Childish Playground Rosary Circle”.
But the Domestic Council of Radio-broadcasting and Television (KRRiT) called it “ridicule of the disabled” and fined Polsat 500,000 PLN.
The station appealed before Poland’s High Court and lost. The court said that Polsat ridiculed a disabled girl.
“Freedom of speech has its limit where human dignity is violated,” the court said. The television station lost their appeal and the verdict upheld the fine of 500,000 PLN.
After the show aired, and until now, Ms Szczuka maintains there wasn’t a hint of a mention of disability, and that what she said was nothing more than a friendly sketch.
“I spoke of my great regard and fascination for this person. Indeed, I mimicked the voice, but it was an anecdote. A friendly anecdote with a slight mockery,” she said.
The Polsat program also maintains that prior to the broadcast they had no knowledge of the girls disability. It was revealed the girl is bound to a wheel chair due to fragility of her bones.
The Media Ethics Council said it didn’t see any inappropriate treatment of disabled persons in what Ms Szczuka said, but did feel she may have offended the religious sentiment of the faithful.
The show wasn’t aired live so Polsat, by allowing the emission, broke laws which forbid „propagating actions that are against the law or Poland’s national rationale or attitudes and opinions not in line with morality and public welfare”. That’s why the High Court decided KRRiT was right to punish the television station.
The girl’s opinion on this topic is unknown.
By Victoria Ziarkowski
Freelance Writer
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