Freedom of religion vs. airport security checks

The Court adjudicated the cassation claim of the claimant, challenging the judgment of the Court of Appeals in Warsaw rejecting the claim of the claimant – a Sikh – alleging the infringement of his personal rights. During the security check, he demanded to be able to take off his turban in a secluded place without the presence of other guards, but this was refused by the officials in charge. Upon this ground he asserted the encroachment of his freedom of conscience and religion – and hence, an infringement of Articles 23 and 24 of the Civil Code of Poland (specifying the concept of personal rights and remedies in the case of their violation).

Posted on 30/05/2015 by Joanna Buchalska in General Issues

Jurisdictional immunity of the state in cases involving serious human rights abuses

In a decision of 29 October 2010 (IV CSK 465/09), the Polish Supreme Court examined the case of Wincjusz Natoniewski, a survivor of the Second World War, who instituted civil proceedings against the Federal Republic of Germany claiming compensation for injuries he suffered as a consequence of acts perpetrated by German armed forces in 1944. This case is one of many in which survivors of large-scale armed operations against civilians and other barbaric acts seek compensation from the state. Such cases involving serious human rights violations call into question the issue of a state’s entitlement to immunity.

Posted on 13/02/2015 by Agnieszka Gołąb in Civil Procedure

Is the sacrament anointing the sick without authorisation an infringement of the personal good?

In a judgment of 20 September 2013, II CSK 1/13, the Supreme Court addressed the problem of granting the sacrament of anointing the sick to a non-believer. The claimant was a patient at the Independent Public Clinical Hospital in the Cardiac Surgery Clinic. After the operation he was placed into a pharmacologically induced coma. Remaining in this state, he was granted the sacrament in question by a priest who was a chaplain contracted by the Hospital. The claimant learned about it while checking the medical documentation after leaving the hospital.

Posted on 20/11/2014 by Joanna Buchalska in General Issues

For the freedom of art, freedom of law and freedom to err

Art cannot exist without freedom. And where freedom exists, art experiments must be allowed – experiments more or less in line with expectations and what viewers of art are accustomed to. There must be an acceptance of searching, allowing not only for wandering the “dirt track” where nobody has ever seen art, along with scandals where art has long been present. However, everything has its limits. Even the freedom of art. For art, these flexible limits set out the aesthetic canons of the era and the boundaries of law. The aesthetic canons protect the sensitivity of art viewers, while the law protects other values, recognised by the law as more important than the freedom of creativity. If these canons and values are breached by art, then the boundaries within which it is allowed are described by law and set out by the courts of law.

Posted on 11/10/2014 by ACUS in General Issues

Reopening civil proceedings as a result of a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights

The Polish Code of Civil Procedure does not provide for the effects of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on pending or final cases examined by Polish courts. Therefore, the question whether a judgment of the ECHR stating an infringement of Article 6 sec. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights should lead to the reopening of civil proceedings is a contentious and hotly debated topic in Polish legal literature. This issue has also been addressed by the Polish Supreme Court on several occasions, most notably by a panel of seven judges in a judgment of 30 November 2010, III CZP 16/10.

Posted on 10/08/2014 by Agnieszka Gołąb in Civil Procedure

human rights