By conducting legal considerations about whether something is or is not public information, we lose the essence of transparency. This is neither necessary from the point of view of the law applied in Poland nor in accordance with the standards set by the European Court of Human Rights. Polish laws on the right to information…
Where is Poland today? The most important challenges for 2018: local government elections and the change of the law on access to public information, and in the years to come – elections to the parliament as well as presidential elections. These make natural opportunities to take actions directed to politicians. Elections to local governments –…
They came from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Belarus to discuss how citizens can influence the decision making. They were curious how Poles use their rights, how the rights are guaranteed in laws and how citizens take stands on public issues. Why do we call them “Rebels”? After all, they wanted to know how…
Can public authorities have their own media? What is the difference between media whose head is the mayor of a city and the politicized public television? Is it possible to make efficient regulation around active citizens’ activity in the Internet? Do parties have any idea how to make public media independent? Do they want to…
In violation of Article 61 of the Constitution, the judgments of the courts create the possibility of avoiding transparency and create restrictions that have neither a constitutional nor a statutory basis. Courts have allowed for great discretionary power, so the sense of responsibility for the way the law is created has not been generated in…
One of the goals of the draft Act on Openness of Public Life presented by Minister Kamiński (coordinator of special intelligence services) on October 23rd, 2017 is increasing the openness of the legislative process. Such idea may only be applauded, unfortunately the Minister misdiagnosed problems of the transparency of legislative processes, and the Act picks…
Public Information: Persistent Non-transparency The draft opens another door to limit the right of access to information: government may refuse to disclose information if it deems the request has been filed in a ‘persistent’ manner and it would ‘significantly burden the operation of the target entity’. Access to information secured in the constitution of democratic…
The Citizens Network Watchdog Poland presents its opinion on the new legislation entitled: Openness/Transparency of Public Life. This opinion mostly focuses on the part of the draft act that concerns access to information. The draft bill concerns much broader phenomena. Overview of the opinions on that by Polish NGOs can be read on the Citizens…
Citizens are constitutionally entitled to observe and record plenary sessions of the Sejm and Senate [the two chambers of the Polish parliament]. Arguing such rights with the Marshal’s Guards barring a citizen from entering, however, is another matter altogether. The Senate Marshal, Mr Stanisław Karczewski, published on the Senate’s website a statement claiming that [opposition]…
The Law and Justice’s government maintains that it wishes to build a strong civil society. Contrary to these declarations, this is not reflected in the shape of the newest piece of legislation – an Act on the National Institute of Freedom. The Act on the National Institute of Freedom – Centre for the Development of…
Interventions In July 2016 Warsaw hosted a NATO summit. As there were multiple estimates regarding the cost of organising the event, we decided to send a request for public information to its main organiser, the Ministry of National Defence. We asked for disclosure of the report that the Ministry submitted to the prime minister after…
Since October 2016 I have observed that as regards the attitude of the authorities to free society we are moving dangerously close to the path taken by Russia and Hungary. The moment of particular importance was the month-long attack of the public television on civic organisations in which children of persons perceived by the government…
Martyna Bójko (Citizens Network Watchdog Poland): You have just defended your Master’s thesis at the University of Łódź, entitled “Local journalist vs local government – methods of wielding influence”. Was the choice of such subject motivated by your experiences as a local journalist? Are the pressures exerted by local governments on local press significant? Justyna…
2014 The first series of requests concerning Ministers’ schedules was sent by the Citizens Network Watchdog Poland on 1 July 2014. We asked 17 Ministries and the Prime Minister’s Chancellery to provide us with Ministers’ schedules, or at least information about meetings they have taken part in, their dates and participants. We became interested in…
Papers prepared for the European Centre for Not-for-Profit Law to be used during workshop session in Moldova “Implementation of the percentage mechanism: Practice and lessons learned from Central Europe” (September 13, 2016). In case of Poland it specifically concerned Good practices of reaching out to taxpayers in Poland by human rights and watchdog organizations. Learning…
