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In January 2012 the amendment to the Criminal Enforcement Code came into force. The new legislation significantly modifies the law governing post-conviction proceedings. One of the key changes relates to the complaint procedure available for prisoners. The legislator considerably limited the principle of two-instance complaint proceedings. Under the new law, a convicted person may appeal against a judicial decision issued in the enforcement proceedings ‘only where a statute so provides’.

On 16th December 2011, Polish Supreme Administrative Court declared that “amounts of money” paid for undue length of civil or criminal proceedings should be exempted from taxation. Those amounts are paid on the basis of special law of 2004 on complaint on excessive length of proceeding (skarga na przewlekłość postępowania).

Danuta Przywara, HFHR President, and Bogna Chmielewska, Foundation’s expert, received Bene Merito medals awarded by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski. The Minister bestowed the distinctions in recognition of Ms Przywara’s and Ms Chmielewska’s work for human rights in countries of the former USSR. The awards were given in particular in appreciation of the HFHR’s efforts in and commitment to human rights advocacy in Belarus.

On 19 December, the EU-Ukraine Summit was held in Kiev, marking the conclusion of negotiations on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. On this occasion, the HFHR issued an open letter to raise the issue of the recent decrease in the level of human rights protection in the Ukraine. The open letter was drafted as part of the Europe of Human Rights programme.

The HFHR was approached by the attorney for X.Y., a litigant in several commercial proceedings pending before the Circuit Court in Z. The initial analysis of two rulings made in these proceedings shows that their wording, to a major extent, repeats the content of two earlier cases decided by other adjudication panels of the same Court. The only differences are details such as case numbers or dates of events.

On 14 December the Constitutional Tribunal examined the constitutionality of the press registration requirement. The Constitutional Tribunal found that Article 45 of the Press Law providing for the criminal liability for the failure to register a journal or magazine is in violation of the freedom of expression and the right to obtain opinion.

In its address to the Minister of Health, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights warns that ‘as from 1 January 2012, protection of patients’ rights in Poland may be significantly weakened’ as a result of the controversial amendment to the Drug Reimbursement Act. The amendment is coming into force in January 2012.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights together with the Horizon Group Against the Death Penalty called President Alexander Lukashenko to pardon Dmitry Konovalov and Vladislav Kovalyov, the two men sentenced to death for bombing the underground railway in Minsk. According to the organisations such a ‘humanitarian gesture’ would be ‘worthy’ of the nation led by Mr Lukashenko.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and Open Society Foundations have the pleasure to announce the next of the series of Marek Nowicki memorial lectures.This year’s lecture ‘Towards the universal abolition of the death penalty’ will be given by Prof. Robert Badinter a well-known lawyer, lecturer at the Paris Sorbonne University, advocate of abolishing the death penalty. In 1981 he succeeded in abolishing the death penalty in France.