Commissioner for Human Rights

Newsletter Commissioner for Human Rights in Poland 1 - March 2018

Newsletter  1-9 March 2018

MAIN MATTERS

Adam Bodnar about March 1968: physical, symbolic, psychological and economic violence on a large scale. A debate entitled Year 1968. Citizenship: courtesy of the authorities, or a right? was held at the CHR Office. The conference focused on the issue of citizenship as viewed at the time of the anti-Semitic campaign of 1968, under the communist system in Poland. (report on the debate)

From 27 February to 2 March, within the programme of CHR’s regional meetings, Commissioner Adam Bodnar held meetings with citizens from the Podlaskie and Lubelskie voivodeships. The talks concerned, inter alia, problems of the Orthodox community, the Act on the Institute of the National Remembrance and the situation in the Białowieża Forest. (more)

THE COMMISSIONER ON CITIZENS’ ISSUES

The Commissioner has written to the Ministry of Education with regard to the proposed possibility to combine the roles of religion teacher and class tutor. (more)

The CHR has received a reply from the police with regard to the case of a citizen who, during a protest event against a citizens’ march on 10 July 2017, shouted the name of Lech Wałęsa and who was charged with committing a petty offence. (explanations provided by the police)

The CHR intervened before the Minister of Justice with regard to the rights of persons who have been evicted for debts but who are covered by special protection against homelessness yet have difficulties in finding social housing. (more)

Thousands of people living close to airports may resume their lost proceedings regarding compensation for the lowered value of their real properties or the purchase of such properties by the state. This is the conclusion of the Constitutional Tribunal’s judgment issued in the case filed by the CHR. (more)

Adam Bodnar supports changes in the law to make at least 50% of television programmes adapted to the needs of persons with disabilities. (more)

According to the Commissioner, special care allowance should also be paid to disabled persons’ carers who are not under the obligation to provide child maintenance. (more)

The CHR calls for providing access to publicly funded healthcare services to homeless persons (more)

The CHR supports the rights of community nurses who provide care to mentally ill patients. (more)

Adam Bodnar supports the solution permitting electronic forms of collecting citizens’ signatures under bills submitted by citizens. (more)

The Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy’s position on access of single parents to child benefits paid by local governments. (more)

Adam Bodnar’s letter to the Minister of Health: the procedure of patient referral to health resort treatment is discriminatory for persons who are dependent on others. (more)

LEGISLATION

The Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the right of access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings and on the right to have a third party informed upon deprivation of liberty has not yet been implemented to the Polish law. (more)

The Voivodeship Administrative Court has approved the CHR's complaint regarding the size of fees for car towing in Warsaw in 2016. (more)

The court has agreed with the CHR: a bank is liable for damage caused to its customer by its former employee (more)

THE CHRONICLE

Poland has not yet ratified the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, said Adam Bodnar during the conference entitled Medical privacy: practical dilemmas of patients data protection. (more)