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On 26 September 2011 the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights filed a motion with the Circuit Court in Warsaw seeking court’s leave to join, as a community organisation, in the case involving the protection of personal interests brought by Bogdan Wróblewski against the Head of the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA).

Sławomir Poleszak, PhD, head of the Public Education Office of the Lublin branch of the Institute of National Remembrance, wrote a review of the book “National Armed Forces in the Lublin region” by Professor Mirosław Piotrowski. The review was to be published in the Freedom and Independence History Research Bulletin (the actual publication never took place).

The Ministry of Justice speaks about the overpopulation in prison facilities. According to the information provided, as of 7 September 2011 44,300 court rulings concerning 37,113 individuals were pending enforcement. This included 33,399 cases of violations of a prison committal warrant. In total, in the first half of 2011, there were 68,126 defendants with prison sentences who had not been committed to prisons.

The Polish Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights issued an open letter on 28 September, expressing their hope that the problem of the lack of respect for democracy principles and the necessity to introduce human rights protection guarantees in the Easter Partnership member states becomes a priority of the upcoming Warsaw Summit.

President of Poland signed the amendment to the Access to Public Information Act. Last week non-governmental organisations, including the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the Polish Chamber of Press Publishers, the Stefan Batory Foundation, the E-state Foundation and Article 61 Association urged the President to veto the amendment or launch its constitutional review.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights has published the report ‘Class action suits after a year from their introduction’. ‘The institution of a class action suit is not a revolutionary change in the Polish law’, says Marek Niedużak, the author of the report. ‘Still, this is an important step towards a better access to justice’, he adds.

The Senate’s Human Rights, the Rule of Law and Petitions Committee and the Legislative Committee of the Polish Senate held a joint meeting. The agenda of the meeting included the amendment to the Penal Execution Code. The draft law proposes major changes to the current wording of the Code. The HFHR presented its position on the issue of legislative changes.

The Head of the Government Legislation Centre (RCL) responded to the HFHR’s letter concerning the amendment to the Assemblies Act. Maciej Berek, Head of the RCL, said there had been no defects in the RCL’s course of action discussed in the letter. In August 2011 the HFHR appealed in this case to the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk

The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a draft resolution on the abuse of the state secrecy privilege by intelligence services acting to protect state security. The draft resolution was based on the latest Dick Marty’s report, which analysed the issue of the accountability of certain CE member states for their participation in the CIA-operated clandestine rendition and detention programme.