General Jaruzelski proclaiming martial law in 1981

General Jaruzelski and seven members of his regime stand trial for violating the constitution in imposing martial law in December 1981. They are charged with leading ‘an organized criminal group of a military nature having as its goal the carrying out of crimes that consisted of the deprivation of freedom through internment’. We talk about the trial to political analyst Łukasz Warzecha of the daily Fakt.  

Excerpts:

‘This is a very complex question because if we look at the polls we can see that many respondents think that martial law was something good, that it saved it from a Soviet invasion, despite our knowledge now that it’s not true. This is the first issue. The other one is how justice should be done, whether these people should be locked in cells or whether they should be given other kind of sentence. Justice can be done in various ways. You don’t necessarily have to lock someone  in prison. This is for an independent Polish court to say that what they did was unlawful and wrong and I hope that we will hear exactly something like that.’

‘Martial law was unconstitutional. Some actions were executed according to martial law regulations even before these regulations were published; the courts for instance were pronouncing sentences according to martial law regulations even before these regulations were published.’

‘This is a moral judgement more than anything else. This is the last moment in which those people can be judged because they are old and they will probably not live till some other court takes the case. This is a shame that after so many years after those events and after Poland regained her independence , all those issues, not only this matter  but other matters too, have not been properly  judged by the courts.’