3rd CONGRESS ON CIVIL RIGHTS, 13-14 DECEMBER 2019
All those interested are invited to take part in the third Congress on Civil Rights to be held on 13-14 December 2019. Over 40 panels, new reports, special guests, and topics of key importance, which still require discussions.
Registration for the Congress is now open – you can register HERE
As in the previous years, the main venue of the event will be the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, a place where the word dialogue has particular significance.
This year, as a novelty, the participants will also be invited to take part in additional activities in a space that is conducive to free conversations and exchange of experience. This will provide an opportunity to meet other activists, to watch films together and to take part in workshops.
Moreover, this year’s Congress offers the possibility of selecting thematic sessions according to the newly determined categories (which will, hopefully, facilitate panel selection):
More information is available at the Civil Rights Congress portal.
COURTS AND THE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE
- The court has sustained the CHR’s argument that a prosecutor has the right to appeal to a court against the decision on his transfer to work in a court in another city. (more)
- The lengthiness of the investigation concerning photographs of the opposition party’s European MPs displayed on images of gallows has raised the Commissioner’s concern. (more)
- The second part of the play about a „good agent of the communist-era security service”: another former agent of the communist-era security service who cooperated with the Catholic church has regained his retirement pension. (more)
- The District Court in Katowice has restored the previous amount of the applying policeman’s retirement pension that was a reduced based on the 2016 act which lowered pensions of employees of former security services that were subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior in the communist era. The court accepted the CHR’s arguments that, since the person’s retirement pension had been reduced already before (under the 2009 act on communist-era security service staff members), another reduction would require the establishment of new circumstances and facts. (more)
- In a case that concerned stalking, the court issued a restraining order to prohibit the offender to approach and contact the victim. However, it failed to take into account the requirement to determine the duration of the order’s validity period. In his cassation appeal filed with the Supreme Court, the Commissioner applied for re-examination of the case and removal of the omission. (more)
- For a victim of a road accident, too low compensation for the lawyer’s costs had been determined by the court. The CHR filed a cassation appeal in support of the victim. (more)
- The Commissioner will inquire the police and the prosecutor about the accident in which a man was shot dead in Konin. (more)
- After the CHR’s cassation appeal, an offender with mild intellectual disability will have his case re-examined by the court. (more)
OTHER NEWS
- The children and youth divisions of the psychiatric hospital in Gdańsk may be closed down as all the doctors have terminated their employment contracts with the hospital. The Commissioner has intervened in the case, as already before he had been drawing public attention to the poor situation in the field of child psychiatry in Poland. (more)
- The CHR’s statement on the occasion of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. (more)
- I am not going to run for presidency in the next year’s elections. There are many reasons why I should not do it, said Adam Bodnar in an interview with Dominika Wielowieyska on the Tok FM radio. (more)
- The Commissioner has intervened in the case of Ihor Mazur, a veteran of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict in Donbas, and a social activist cooperating with the Ombudswoman of Ukraine. (more)
- Piotr Zychowicz’s book Wołyń zdradzony was not taken into account in the competition for the History Book of the Year because it was published after the deadline, replied the presidents of the TVP and of the Polish Radio and the Director of the National Culture Centre to the CHR’s question. (more)
- A priest of a parish in the Małopolska province, who is also a religion teacher in a primary school there, behaved unprofessionally in the classroom, as the media reported. He is reported to have shouted at pupils, pushed someone, and even hit one of the pupils with the students registry book. The Commissioner has requested the province’s education inspector to provide explanations on the matter. (more)
- Polish citizens who wanted to take part in the recent parliamentary elections and use the polling station in Birkirkar in Malta had problems with it, as the address of the Polish consulate where the station was located was incorrect. (more)
- The participants of the demonstration held on 2 February 2019 in front of the TVP building in Warsaw disagree with the description of the events as presented in the media, and with the statement that they attacked Magdalena Ogórek when she was leaving the TV studio. The CHR has received the protestants’ letter and is going to meet with them. (more)
EVENTS
- At the CHR Office, a meeting was held with representatives of the Eurydyka Association for Supporting Women and Mothers. (more)