A new Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights project entitled “Strengthening the rule of law and human rights protection in Poland through involvement of business entities, civil society groups and individuals in strategic litigation activities” was inaugurated on 18 June during a conference that included several dozen representatives from the world of science, business, media and nongovernmental organizations. (20-JUNE-07)

Written by Marta Lempicka/HRH Warsaw


Project launch conference
The conference was divided into two panels: Human Rights Protection, Law and Order and the Economy, as well as Shaping the Civil Society: Strategic Court Cases. The panelists who delivered their speeches included inter alia: Prof. Leszek Balcerowicz, Prof. Ewa Letowska and Prof. Andrzej Rzeplinski. Attorney Tomasz Wardynski talked about the role of legal chambers in shaping the standards of human rights protection. Then, Attorney Robert Krasnodebski, in his speech, emphasized the importance of pro bono legal assistance and public interest actions in establishing the civil liability of lawyers and Attorney Magda Mierzewska, who participated in the seminar, spoke of the Polish nongovernmental organizations’ participation in cases held before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the role that lawyers who cooperate with NGOs based on the pro bono principle can play in these cases.              

Objectives and project implementation
The project’s objective is to develop the potential lurking in the civil society in consolidating human rights standards through strategic litigation. The project’s originators were driven by the conviction that the involvement of the civil society in establishing human rights standards is necessary in order to achieve progress in this discipline and to stabilize the rule of law and democracy in Poland. As part of the project, ca. twenty precedential cases shall be held involving legal chambers and individual lawyers. In addition, training will be held for law clinics, labor unions and nongovernmental organizations in the scope of applying strategic litigation. The project will end with a summary conference and the publication of a textbook on strategic litigation. The project will be conducted based on the experiences of the Strategic Litigation Program of the HFHR, which has proven to be successful on many occasions, inter alia in cases of Alicja Tysiac, Miroslaw Sielatycki and Bozena Lopacka vs. Biodronka, as well as in the case of Baczkowski, which concerned the banning of the Equality March in 2005.