Aloyzas Sakalas, rapporteur. − Mr President, I think that the consequences of the issue of waiving immunity are not the same as waiving immunity. Mr Tomczak was expected and summoned to appear before a court 12 times, but he did not appear at court.

All the procedural and substantive questions raised in connection with Mr Tomczak’s case, and especially the question of the alleged insulting language used against the police officers, should be resolved objectively by the Polish judicial authorities. Therefore, I would like to stress two points. The question of whether the immunity of Mr Tomczak was properly waived at the beginning of the proceedings, when he was a member of the Polish Parliament, is a question that can be verified only by the appropriate judicial authority in Poland, in this case the District Court in Ostrów Wielkopolski. There is always the possibility of appeal.

Secondly, the possibility of Mr Tomczak’s losing his seat in this Parliament cannot be considered as a motive for the prosecution, as, at the time of the incident of 19 June 2004, Mr Tomczak was not a Member of the European Parliament, and the law applicable to national parliamentarians does not contain provisions for such consequences.

On the basis of the above considerations, the Committee on Legal Affairs recommends that the European Parliament should not defend the parliamentary immunity of Mr Tomczak.