The Civil Commission of Good Will initiated its activity on 21 June on a press conference in the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights headquarters. Its members include underground opposition activists from the period of the Polish People’s Republic, historians, lawyers as well as clergymen. The Commission wants to bring aid to individuals accused of cooperation with the secret service of the Polish People’s Republic, who have a sense of wrong and injustice in connection with the publication of information regarding their past. (25-JUNE-07)

Written by Agnieszka Chmielecka, Marta Lempicka/HRH Warsaw
Photo by Lukasz Kraszynski/HFHR

The Commission’s goals
In the declaration issued by the Commission we read inter alia: “The lustration process in Poland is taking place in an atmosphere of political, legal and emotional disputes. These emotions and the pursuit of sensation have led to a situation where the idea that was designed to reveal the truth often becomes the opposite of this. In the media, the verdict of guilty is made publicly, without ensuring the right to prove one’s innocence, to present the degree of guilt and to present extenuating circumstances. Court proceedings may go on for years and in the case of these individuals will no longer come to anything. Therefore, since these people are deprived of the opportunity to provide explanations and defend themselves – we have decided to establish the Civil Commission, which is ready to hear out the reports of victims of public lynch law and look into them in the context of those times.                         
The Commission’s goal is to help individuals accused of cooperation with the secret service of the Polish People’s Republic, who have a sense of injustice in connection with the publication of information regarding their past.

Makeup and status of the Commission
The members of the Commission are: Teresa Bogucka – member of the Helsinki Committee in Poland, cofounder of the independent culture movement, satirist Jacek Fedorowicz, political commentator Andrzej Kaczyñski (spokesperson for the Commission), sociologists: Hanna Œwida-Ziemba and Andrzej Rychard, KOR member Henryk Wujec, nongovernmental organization activist Danuta Sto³ecka, historians: Andrzej Friszke and Arkadiusz Rybicki, writer Anka Kowalska, outstanding attorney and senator Krzysztof Piesiewicz, as well as clergymen who cooperated with the democratic opposition in the 1980s: Dominican monk father Ludwik Wiœniewski and father Stanis³aw Opiela (S.J.).
The Commission is affiliated with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, but operates independently.  

The Commission’s manner of operation
The Commission is ready to hear out those who turn to it with a request for support in seeking the truth and are willing to present their story in an honest and reliable manner. Within the confines of its activity, the Commission will familiarize itself as much as possible with all facts and circumstances that may be of significance in assessing the events, ask for the testimony of other people, whose explanations may contribute to establishing the truth, require individuals and the media to present materials, based on which judgments constituting the subject of the explanations were formulated, as well as turn to the Institute of National Remembrance with a request for assistance and cooperation and, above all, for acts and documents that are in this institution’s possession to be made available.

 Declaration in Polish

 Statute in Polish