The Appeals Court in the Polish capital Warsaw on Tuesday sided with Krzysztof Czabański, the head of the country’s National Media Council (RMN), who appealed against an earlier decision by a lower court.
In 2019, Czabański submitted a lawsuit against Facebook accusing it of infringing moral rights and censorship of content posted on the social media platform.
He declined to pay a PLN 2,000 (EUR 440) fee for having his lawsuit translated into English and Facebook refused to accept the Polish-language complaint.
A Warsaw district court decided that Facebook’s move was in accordance with the law and suspended the case in September last year.
'Landmark judgment'
Now the appeals court overturned that decision and endorsed Czabański's appeal, citing a 2019 verdict by the Higher Land Court of Düsseldorf, Germany, according to which Facebook cannot require German users to translate complaints against the platform into English, the PAP news agency reported.
The Appeals Court in Warsaw ruled that Facebook Ireland Ltd, based in Dublin, "cannot be said not to know Polish," as “it creates user regulations and privacy policies in this language, as well as entering into numerous agreements with Polish users in Polish.”
Czabański said this was “a landmark judgment,” adding that "up to now Facebook has been acting in Poland like a king of a colonised country.”
“Facebook has an excellent command of Polish, as it conducts large-scale business here," Czabański told reporters. He also argued that refusing to accept lawsuits in Polish "is just a way of avoiding responsibility."
Krzysztof Czabański. Photo: Polish Radio
Czabański told the media that his lawsuit against Facebook was "about freedom of speech," and that after the successful appeal, users "will now be able to meet the big corporation in court on an equal footing.”
“In my opinion, this is good news for all Facebook users in Poland,” Czabański said, as cited by PAP.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP