MAIN MATTERS
Commissioner for Human Rights Adam Bodnar and employees of the CHR Office attended the PolAndRock festival in Kostrzyń nad Odrą. From 1 to 4 August 2018, there was a Human Rights Tent where we organized presentations, workshops, discussions, talks, games and competitions. Three debates were also held. Persons who visited the tent could speak to the Office employees and representatives of NGOs. The Nigdy więcej [Never Again] association organized a football match under the slogan: “Let’s kick racism out of stadiums”. (more)
Polish institutions suffer of the syndrome of dependence on party connections. So far, courts have been free from this syndrome, but now the situation is changing, were saying judges and lawyers during a debate entitled “Free courts”, held during the PolAndRock festival in Kostrzyń nad Odrą. Adam Bodnar recalled the last year’s protests defending the courts. Today, we want to find out why the protests gathered so many people last year, but it is no longer the case this year, he said. (more)
Limitations faced by social organizations in their fight for the environment were discussed in the Greenpeace and CHR debate held during the PolAndRock festival in Kostrzyń nad Odrą. Adam Bodnar pointed out that regulations should be changed in order to strengthen citizens’ rights to consultations and access to information. (more)
The #Metoo movement has to have a face of 20-year-olds who are a new generation and do not agree to what their mothers agreed to, was emphasized during the CHR’s debate on the issue, held during the PolAndRock festival in Kostrzyń nad Odrą. Adam Bodnar said that the debate is mainly held at the Warsaw and leftist levels, but it is high time it became a broader-scale debate (more)
THE COMMISSIONER ON CITIZENS’ ISSUES
The Commissioner has serious reservations regarding the proportionality of elections to the European Parliament after the planned amendment to the Electoral Code. He presented a critical opinion on the bill to President Andrzej Duda who has received it for signing. (more)
The possibility to file complaints against the use of detention is illusory as their effectiveness is at the level of several percent only, pointed out the Commissioner. He proposed to depart from the system of detention in all cases when a committed act is subject to severe penalty, to resign from detention in cases of offences that are subject to penalty of less than two years of imprisonment, and to introduce a maximum period after which detention may be extended only in exceptional cases. (more)
Low salaries of nurses and midwives, and too small number of persons exercising these professions constitute constant problems of which the Minister of Health has been reminded by the Commissioner. According to him, the problems are not solved and, moreover, they seem to be more severe. (more)
The Commissioner inquired the Chief Police Commander about the legitimacy, legality and correctness of operational and reconnaissance activities conducted by the police in July 2017 in relation to organizers of demonstrations defending the courts. Operational and reconnaissance activities should be aimed at identifying and preventing crimes and offences, and the assemblies held in July 2017 were legal. (more)
The letters “PZPR” painted on the building in which PiS MPs’ office is located cannot be considered an encouragement to introduce a communist regime, pointed out the CHR being concerned that the police considered the letters a “propagation of the totalitarian system”. (more)
The Commissioner expressed his concern about the fact that the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan visited a refugee centre near Warsaw. The CHR wanted to know whether foreigners from Kazakhstan, seeking protection in Poland against persecution, were present in the centre and whether their data were protected during the visit. (more)
The Commissioner forwarded to the head of the Central Anticorruption Bureau an inquiry concerning the meeting of the Bureau’s officers with PO’s MP Stanisław Gawłowski. It is said that in June 2018, the officers visited the MP and proposed releasing him in return for testifying against PO leaders. (more)
Maintenance of the regulations under which parties’ propaganda-related expenditure during the so-called pre-election campaign remain beyond control has been a purposeful and conscious decision of the legislator, stated head of the Senate committee Robert Mamątow in reply to the CHR’s intervention concerning the need to regulate the pre-election campaign (more)
The Commissioner maintains the postulated solution consisting in recording notarized actions, which would make it possible to clearly examine the course of an action during which a party to it might have sold e.g. his/her apartment against his/her will, as a result of a fraudulent loan. (more)
Work assessment indicators for teachers and heads of schools should be determined in the Ministry of National Education’s regulation, stated the CHR in his opinion issued for the parliamentary committee on education, working on the bill of PO deputies. (more)
Residents of Youth Correctional Facilities should be able to continue education at schools located within the facilities, even when they are over 18, believes the Commissioner who has submitted an intervention letter regarding the issue to the Ministry of Education. (more)
LEGISLATION
After the CHR’s cassation appeal, the Supreme Court annulled a judgment discontinuing the court proceedings relating to a man accused of killing a pedestrian while driving too fast when it was dark. (more)
THE CHRONICLE
In connection with the attack on Draginja Nadażdin, Director of Amnesty International Poland, Adam Bodnar sent a letter to her, expressing his support and solidarity. (more)
The ceremony commemorating the extermination of the Roma families camp called Zigeunerlager, in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, was attended by CHR Deputy Hanna Machińska. (more)