On February 5, 2020, the Speaker of the Polish Sejm ordered the election of the President of the Republic for May 10, 2020, and on March 13, the Decree of the Minister of Health on the declaration of an epidemic emergency in the territory of the Republic of Poland was published. Despite the worsening epidemic…
In 2021, almost nothing happened in terms of guarantees for NGOs. It was a crisis year in which there was sustained pressure on democracy and the rule of law. The only positives were that organizations led to public hearings being held on the National Recovery Plan and the election of an independent person as Ombudsman,…
Roksana Maślankiewicz: Tell me, which came first in your case – the right to information or animal rights? How did you learn about the right to information? Anna Gdula: I started by advocating for animal rights. In 2012, I met Iza Kadłucka on Facebook. We founded the first “Lex Nova” Foundation. During the first years…
We asked the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Health about the basis for the introduction of the national quarantine and information about the Medical Council, which was supposed to be a subsidiary body of the Prime Minister. Instead of information, we got a demonstration of different ways to inform about… the…
“I’m against raging transparency. Ivan Krastev, an eminent political scientist, has demonstrated that transparency can kill democracy” – claimed Andrzej Zybertowicz, advisor to President Andrzej Duda, on RMF FM radio station in January 2019. Even though Andrzej Zybertowicz explained that it was his personal opinion, there is no denying that in 2019, for the first…
Interview of Tomasz Kwaśniewski with Agnieszka Podgórska and Szymon Osowski for Duży Format (a special supplement to Gazeta Wyborcza). We can share the translation thanks to the kind approval of Gazeta Wyborcza. *** We asked all provincial marshals and governors about the salaries of managers. And while we were at it, we also asked about…
On the 5th of July 2011, Polish government accepted a draft of a new law on access to public information. The reason for updating the existing Act that is 10 years old, was the implementation of the EC Directive on the Re-Use of Public Sector Information. The promise made by the government after almost three…