Zbigniew Ziobro

Zbigniew Tadeusz Ziobro (Polish: [ˈzbiɡɲɛf ˈʑɔbrɔ] ^ⓘ; born 18 August 1970) is a Polish politician. He served as the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland in the Cabinet of Mateusz Morawiecki until 27 November 2023. He previously served in the same role from October 2005 to November 2007, simultaneously serving as the Public Prosecutor General. He was elected to the Sejm on 25 September 2005 in the 13th Kraków district, running on the Law and Justice party list. He received over 120,000 votes in the parliamentary election, the highest percentage constituency results in the election.

Ziobro graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration of Jagiellonian University. He did not complete his PhD. He was a member of the Lower House (Sejm) legislature from 2001 to 2005. Due to his proclaimed "battle against corruption", he became one of the more popular, but also polarizing, politicians in Poland. His uncompromising approach and publicized prosecutions earned him the title Man of the year 2006, awarded by Wprost magazine. However, some of his policies were repeatedly characterized as partisan and overzealous by local and international press, including The Economist.

In 2007, the former Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration Janusz Kaczmarek, allegedly linked to the Andrzej Lepper bribery case, was forced to resign. He subsequently made a series of attacks on members of the government, especially Ziobro. In a media confrontation with the vice-PM Andrzej Lepper, Ziobro revealed that he had secretly recorded a conversation with Lepper. In 2009 European Parliament election in Poland, he was elected in the Kraków constituency as an MEP. He received 335,933 votes, representing the second highest score in the country.