A Warsaw court on January 10 discontinued proceedings in the case of Polish writer Jakub Zulczyk, who faced charges for calling President Andrzej Duda a “moron” in a critical Facebook post.

The court sided with Zulczyk’s defence that argued his post was a legitimate critique of the president and said that the writer’s words were of “negligible social harm”.

The case reignited the long-standing debate in Poland about limits of freedom of speech and the extent to which public figures are protected against criticism, however harsh. 

“The case was discontinued, I am innocent. I thank [my lawyer] for representing me and thank you all for supporting me,” Zulczyk told the media after the court’s decision.

The prosecution hinted at appealing against the discontinuation of the case but said it might do so only after receiving the court’s decision in writing.

Zulczyk faced charges for violating an article in the Polish criminal code that says “whoever insults the President of the Republic of Poland in public shall be subject to the penalty of the deprivation of liberty for up to three years”.

“The purpose of [calling Duda a moron] was not to draw attention to himself or to ridicule or humiliate Andrzej Duda, the man who serves as president, but to criticize his very unreasonable behaviour, which I maintain,” Żulczyk explained to the court during a hearing in August.

In his Facebook post written after the US presidential election in 2020, Zulczyk commented on a tweet by Duda in which the president congratulated Joe Biden on a “successful presidential campaign”, adding that Poland was awaiting “a nomination by the Electoral College”.

The tweet, merely acknowledging the success of Biden's campaign, was symptomatic of the Polish rightwing government’s attitude to then president-elect, whose defeat of Trump came as an unwelcome development. 

“I have never heard of a "nomination by the Electoral College" in the US election process. Biden won …  The president-elect in the US is ‘announced’ by news agencies, there is no central body or office that does it … Joe Biden is the 46th president of the United States. Andrzej Duda is a moron,” Zulczyk wrote. 

Zulczyk is a graduate of American studies.

Similar cases in the past resulted in offenders receiving the penalty of community service. One case involved a man who drew a penis on a Duda election poster. 

Another, earlier, case involved a man who created a computer game in which players shot at the image of Duda’s predecessor, Bronislaw Komorowski.

The "Duda is a moron" case was reportedly brought to the prosecution by a private citizen, not the president himself or his office.