Jakub Petkiewicz

Jewish Property Restitution – Failed Measures

synagoga

Restitution or compensation for Jewish property nationalised by the communist regime in Poland after WW2 is an ever-recurring issue of public debate, fuelled by repeated appeals from Jewish organisations and certain foreign politicians for the enactment of relevant provisions. Due to numerous economic, social and political considerations, successive Polish governments after 1989 have been rather reluctant to respond to these demands. However, contrary to popular belief, regulations on this matter do exist and date back to the times of communism, when the regime itself decided to face the problem and attempted to solve it on both an international and a domestic level.

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Posted on 02/03/2015 by Jakub Petkiewicz in Property Law

The Regulation of Motherhood in the Polish Family and Guardianship Code

paszport

The regulation introduced to the Polish Family and Guardianship Code by the law of 6 November 2008, which entered into force on 13 June 2009 (the newly added section “Motherhood” encompassing Articles 619 – 6116; Journal of Laws of 2008 No 220 item 1431), is entirely devoted to the hitherto ignored issue of maternal descent. The reform is primarily a somewhat preventive reaction to the expansion of assisted reproductive technology (ART), which enables a woman who is either unwilling or incapable of carrying and giving birth to a child to provide her egg for fertilisation, which is then planted into another woman’s womb. One of the major social effects of the new technique is the possible split of the natural motherly “functions”, hitherto vested in one person, between the genetic mother, who provides the egg for insemination, and the biological, or surrogate mother, who carries and bears the baby.

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Posted on 17/05/2014 by Jakub Petkiewicz in General Issues