BIO

Michal Wawrykiewicz, an attorney involved in the defense of the rule of law from 2015-2023. Co-founder of the „Free Courts” initiative and one of the initiators of the KOS Committee for the Defense of Justice, established to provide legal assistance to repressed judges and prosecutors. Michal Wawrykiewicz has conducted dozens of cases before Polish courts and European tribunals (CJEU and ECHR), and has represented those most committed to defending the rule of law, including Supreme Court judges, including conducting the A.K. case before the CJEU, where the issues of the neo-KRS and the Disciplinary Chamber were recognized for the first time. Participated as an expert in hearings before the LIBE Committee in the European Parliament, in talks with the European Commission (including Vera Jourova, Frans Timmermans, Didier Reynders) on the destruction of the Polish judiciary and the conditions for the release of the KPO. He co-founded the international organization DemoCrisis, which works to protect the rule of law in countries threatened by authoritarianism. He has organized international conferences and debates and educational programs. He is currently actively involved in the work of the inter-ministerial team for the restoration of the rule of law.

He was a European Union expert in the „Consolidation of the Justice System in Albania” program.
Along with the Free Courts initiative, he was honored for his public activities with Newsweek’s T. Torańska Award (2018), Radio TOK FM’s A. Laszuk (2019), the European Parliament Citizenship Award for actions in accordance with the values enshrined in the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, such as democracy, the rule of law, human rights (2021), the Rule of Law Award from the Union Internationale des Avocats (2022) and the Andrzej Wajda Award for public activity (2024). In 2021, he received the „Advocacy of Merit” badge. He has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC.

He is currently a non-partisan candidate for the European Parlemant from the list of the Civic Coalition in Greater Poland.