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The HFHR sent a letter to the Ministers of Justice and Finance and the Prosecutor General, in which it raised the issue of taxes being imposed on the sums awarded as damages under the Excessively Lengthy Proceedings Complaint Act.

The HFHR has issued yet another appeal to the Ministry of Interior urging the same to consider adding to the draft Foreigners Act a provision that would enable parents legally living in Poland to legalise the stay of their children. The direct reason for this new intervention is the case of a three-year old Vietnamese girl who could not have had her stay legalised because she was not born in Poland, despite the fact that her parents lived in Poland legally.

Works on the amendment to the Prosecution Service Act are underway. The changes proposed in the draft amendment include the dissolution of the separate military prosecution service and the establishment of a Government’s power to approve annual “fundamental considerations of criminal policy”. According to the HFHR, works on the bill should be abandoned.

The HFHR called the Minister of National Defence for explanations regarding the Poland’s military plans to purchase unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs, also known as “drones”) to be used by an independent combat unit. In May this year, Gazeta Wyborcza reported that the MND plans to acquire 41 sets of unmanned aircrafts and two sets of armed drones with similar combat capabilities to those of US Predator UCAVs used in military operations performed in locations such as Pakistan.

The National Council of Judiciary responded to another letter of the HFHR concerning the issue of judges copying passages from justifications written in other cases. The NCJ upheld its previous position on the matter. In addition, it condemned the practice of repeating lexical, stylistic and punctuation errors in the copied passages of statements of reasons.

The HFHR presented the Minister of Justice with an opinion on the draft law amending the Code of Criminal Procedure, dated 5 June 2012. The project in its current shape is designed to significantly modify the essence of criminal litigation. So far, the court has played a key role in criminal evidentiary proceedings. However, the draft amendment places the burden of going forward with evidence onto the parties to the proceedings.

4 August 2012 marked one year since the arrest of Ales Belyatsky, a Belarusian human rights activist. Ales Belyatsky was arrested after Polish and Lithuanian prosecutors had provided Belarussian authorities with details of his private bank accounts, used to receive funds for victims of political repression in Belarus. Mr Belyatsky was sentenced to four and a half years in a high-security colony and property forfeiture.

The Circuit Court in Sieradz heard the appeal in the case of Adam Synowiec, a former city councillor in Zduńska Wola. In the first instance, Mr Synowiec was found guilty of abusing his official power, the offence under article 231(1) of the Criminal Code because he signed a leaflet criticising an intending senator during the election campaign. The appellate court ordered retrial.

A Filipino national, a legal partner of a Pole under the UK law, has been refused entry to Poland by border officers. The Border Guard’s decision has been appealed against before the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw, which is expected to make a ruling. In November 2011, X.Y., a Filipino national travelling with his Polish partner, was refused entry to Poland by a Border Guard officer. He was told he was not allowed to enter Poland because the country did not recognise homosexual partnerships.