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The Polish Constitution from 1997 deprived incapacitated persons of their voting rights. Meanwhile, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, signed by Republic of Poland, asserts the voting rights to mentally disabled people regardless of legal incapacitation. During last voting to European Parliament, incapacitated persons were not entitled to vote (as well as in every voting after 1997). Article 7 paragraph 2 point 3 of Polish Voting Ordinance do European Parliament points out that incapacitated persons are deprived of the right to vote.

Since few years in the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and in the office of Government’s Agent for Equal Treatment lasts legislation work on the proposal of an act on equal treatment. Its main aim is to implement the EU directives concerning the rule of non-discrimination into polish law.

Proceedings against a journalist and a member of the Polish Hunting Association (PZŁ) are pending before the Circuit Hunting Tribunal in Warsaw. The latter was brought before a peer tribunal for informing the public about irregularities in one of the local hunting associations.

In July 2009, the proposal to impose on parliamentary, municipal or presidential candidates a duty to produce a doctor’s certificate regarding their mental condition put forward by the Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection (Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich, RPO), was widely discussed.

On 22 June 2009 Polish Constitutional Tribunal announced a judgement in case concerning the functioning of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA; signature K 54/07).

The prohibition of discrimination in employment is a basic principle in polish labour law and in the European Union Law (directive 2000/78/EC). “Ekotrade” case is one of the first discrimination cases before Polish courts and it shows how this principle functions in fact.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights made a statement to the President of Republic of Poland regarding the dratf legislation for the Public Activity within the Sphere of Media Services Act. The President of Republic of Poland declined to sign the draft in July 2009.

On the 6th of July – in anticipation of the 10th of this month – The Viridarium Group organised a commemoration evening of two anniversaries: of the murder of Jews in the village of Jedwabne, Republic of Poland (1942) and of Moslem refugees in Srebrenica, former Yugoslavia (1995).

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, for its 75th session from 3 to 28 August 2009. The Committee is reviewing Poland’s 17th to 19th periodic reports from 5 to 6 August.