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The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights wishes to express its deep concern over the media reports on the actions performed by the Internal Security Agency on 18 June 2014 at the offices of the Wprost weekly magazine.

District Court for the Warsaw’s Mokotów borough held the first hearing in the case of W.W., a convicted felon with a spine condition, who has repeatedly been transferred between the prisons where he was staying and the criminal courts. As a result of the transfers, his health has deteriorated. W.W. brought legal action against the State Treasury, represented by the Chief Commissioner of the Police and Director General of the Prison Service.

Marcin K. has filed a lawsuit against Zbigniew R., the Kołobrzeg-Koszalin Diocese and St. Adalbert Roman Catholic Parish. He requests an apology in the national edition of the Gazeta Wyborcza daily newspaper and Newsweek magazine, and PLN 200,000 as compensation for moral damages caused by a priest’s sexual abuse. The first hearing in the case of Marcin K. was held in the Regional Court in Koszalin.

The Court of Appeal in Warsaw has revoked an interim injunction order issued against a journalist of a local newspaper. The injunction imposed on the journalist a year-long ban on covering a certain subject.

Under the current rules of procedure applicable in petty offence cases, a person accused of committing a petty offence has no ability to seek advice from counsel at the preliminary stage of the proceedings. The provisions in question also fails to grant the accused access to case files. Last week, the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling declared these laws unconstitutional.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights has published a monograph entitled “Procedural Fairness in Juvenile Justice”, which is an outcome of the project “Children in Detention: Joint Achievements versus a Need for a Reform”.

The ECtHR proclaimed judgement in the case of Andras Baka v. Hungary. Andras Baka was President of the Hungarian Supreme Court. Following the constitutional reform in 2011 and the transformation of the Supreme Court into a new body, the Curia, he was removed from his function. The ECtHR ruled, among other things, that the dismissal violated the right to have access to a court. The HFHR filed an amicus curiae brief in the proceedings pending before the ECtHR.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights has submitted a review of draft premises of a law on video surveillance. The draft, prepared by the Ministry of the Interior at the end of 2013, has been supported by the HFHR. It was noted in the review that surveillance “is a tool that may interfere with the right to privacy and therefore it is essential from the perspective of civil rights and freedoms to put in place a proper legal framework governing its functioning”.

Since 2012, guarded centres for foreigners have undergone visible changes, including the relaxation of the regime. Nevertheless, many things still need to be improved, reads the report “Still Behind Bars” published by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and the Association for Legal Intervention.