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TITLE: POLAND HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1993
DATE: JANUARY 31, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
POLAND
Four years after the fall of communism, Poland is a
parliamentary democracy based on a multiparty system and free
and fair elections. A popularly elected President shares power
with a Prime Minister and bicameral Parliament.
The coalition government led by Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka
and the Democratic Union party fell in May on a vote of no
confidence which passed by one vote, and President Lech Walesa
dissolved Parliament. In parliamentary elections held in
September, the Democratic Left Alliance, a successor to the
former Communist party, won a plurality of the votes and formed
a coalition Government with the Polish Peasant Party. The
Government, headed by Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak of the
Peasant Party, has a comfortable majority both in the Sejm (the
lower house) and the Senate (the upper house).
The Polish armed forces and the internal security apparatus are
subject to governmental authority and under civilian control.
There is some ambiguity over how the President and the Prime
Minister share power over the military. This issue is to be
addressed with new legislation which President Walesa and the
Pawlak Government are considering and ultimately with a new
constitution. Regular police were accused of using excessive
force to disperse demonstrations in Warsaw on three occasions
and of brutality in dealing with homeless people and foreigners.
Poland's fledgling market economy provided opportunity to
associate with others, pursue private interests, and own
private property. However, the struggle to continue the rapid
pace of transition from a centrally planned economy to a
market-oriented system caused a steady rise in unemployment,
with women and younger workers suffering disproportionately.
Discontent among Poles who believed that the reform process
left them worse off than before contributed to an increase in
voter support for leftist parties which promised to cushion the
pain of economic reform while preserving democratic
institutions.
Some infringements of the rights of free speech and assembly
occurred in 1993. Polish courts handed down convictions based
on a section of law that imposes fines and prison sentences on
persons who criticize a state body. A new broadcast law went
into effect in March, and some of its provisions were
criticized for potentially impinging on the freedom of the
electronic media. On occasion police used excessive force to
disperse demonstrators who, they claimed, violated the rules
governing public demonstrations. Women continued to be
hampered in their struggle for equality in the workplace by the
lack of legal redress. Regulations on religious education in
schools, supported by the rightist Christian National Union
(ZChN), a member of Prime Minister Suchocka's coalition, fueled
much controversy, and the Ombudsman raised the question of
their legality to the Constitutional Tribunal which ruled, in
part, in his favor. An attempt in the Sejm to recall the
Ombudsman was frustrated by the dissolution of Parliament.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
There were no reports of politically motivated killings, but in
July police allegedly beat to death two homeless people living
in Warsaw's central train station. The Warsaw district
prosecutor opened a special investigation into the incident.
b. Disappearance
There were no reports of abductions, secret arrests, or
clandestine detention by police or official security forces.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment
No allegations of torture were reported. Some incidents of
police brutality received wide publicity in the Polish press in
1993. Members of a Carmelite monastery that provides medical
aid to the homeless living around the train station reported
that the people in their care often claim to have been beaten
by police. The district police commandant acknowledged to the
press that it is standard police procedure to use force with
homeless people under certain circumstances, including when
trying to compel them to vacate public areas.
Police also used force to disperse public demonstrations. In
June police broke up a demonstration of center-right parties in
Warsaw's Castle Square by beating demonstrators with
nightsticks. The Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection (or
Ombudsman) asked the prosecutor's office to begin an
investigation into the incident. In September police dispersed
a demonstration organized by a pacifist group protesting
obligatory military service by beating protesters with
nightsticks and shoving them into police and unmarked
vehicles. There were no arrests.
On the night of the September parliamentary elections, members
of a center-right party held an impromptu demonstration in the
streets of Warsaw; police also used force to disperse them.
According to the official account of the incident,
demonstrators resisted police when they were asked to move to
the sidewalk; however, a journalist reported that demonstrators
in fact obeyed the police and moved to the sidewalk;
nevertheless, police dragged them into squad cars, beating them
with nightsticks. No charges were brought by the victims.
The Ombudsman's office reported that it examined over 40
complaints of police brutality against foreigners in 1993.
Overall, prison conditions continued to improve in 1993. The
Ombudsman presented proposals for more lenient sentencing to
the Ministry of Justice and the Central Board of Penal
Institutions to reduce overcrowding in prisons. The Ministry
of Justice had not taken action by year's end. However,
conditions in juvenile detention centers remained poor. The
Helsinki Committee reported that financial difficulties
resulted in a lack of food for detainees in some institutions,
and personnel were generally more abusive toward detainees than
prison guards were toward prison inmates. Human rights
organizations reported that they have permanent passes to visit
prisons and juvenile detention centers and that they can
monitor their operations freely.
No laws currently exist regarding the rights of psychiatric
patients admitted to mental hospitals. A press report in
September stated that, of some 142,000 Poles admitted yearly to
mental health facilities, over 20,000 were placed there against
their will. Under current procedures, a doctor's order alone
suffices to have a patient confined to a mental institution.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
No arbitrary arrests were reported in 1993. Polish law allows
a 48-hour detention period before authorities are required to
bring formal charges, during which detainees are normally
denied access to a lawyer. Once a prosecutor presents the
legal basis for a formal investigation, the law provides the
detainee access to a lawyer. A detainee may be held under
"temporary" arrest for up to 3 months and may challenge the
legality of his arrest through appeal to the district court. A
court may extend this pretrial confinement period every 3
months until the trial date. Human rights organizations
reported that most detainees were released on bail pending
trial, although in a few instances detainees were held in jail
for over a year awaiting trial.
The Ombudsman worked to improve detention facilities in 1993.
His office submitted proposals to allow detainees access to
telephones, which are still relatively difficult to obtain for
average Poles. A change in procedure required that an
investigator be present at the time a detainee is charged with
a crime.
In September the Ombudsman demanded publicly that policemen,
public prosecutors, and judges provide prisoners of foreign
nationalities with information on their legal rights in
languages understandable to them. He asked that prison
authorities ensure that prisoners are not served meals banned
by their respective religions; he said that they should also be
guaranteed access to their native press and literature. The
Government took no action by year's end.
There is no exile.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
Poland has a three-tier court system, consisting of regional
and provincial courts and a Supreme Court which is divided into
five divisions--military, civil, criminal, labor, and family.
A Constitutional Tribunal may offer opinions on legislation but
has no real authority. It is elected by the Sejm, which can
overrule the Tribunal's findings. Judges are nominated by the
National Judicial Council and appointed by the President. They
serve until the age of 65 and may apply for an extension until
age 70, after which they are retired.
All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. At
the end of a trial, the court renders its decision orally and
then has 7 days to prepare a written decision. A defendant has
the right to appeal a decision within 14 days of the written
decision. Appeals may be made on, among other grounds, the
basis of new evidence or procedural irregularities.
Criminal cases are tried in regional and provincial courts by a
panel consisting of a professional judge and two lay
assessors. The seriousness of the offense determines which of
these is the court of first instance. Once formal charges are
filed, the defendant is allowed to study the charges and
consult with an attorney, who is provided at public expense if
necessary. Once the defendant is prepared, a trial date is
set. Defendants are required to be present during trial and
may present evidence and confront witnesses in their own
defense. The right to testify is universal.
Trials in Poland are normally public. The court, however,
reserves the right to close a trial to the public in some
circumstances, such as divorce cases, trials in which state
secrets may be disclosed, or cases whose content might offend
"public morality." The court rarely invokes this prerogative.
The Senate Office of Intervention reported that it received
some complaints in 1993 that Polish judges released or
convicted defendants at their whim. According to the Office of
Intervention, the majority of Polish judges are holdovers from
the Communist era when their verdicts were influenced by the
Communist party, and therefore they do not have the proper
training to implement the law.
An amendment to the law on the court system, which went into
effect in September, made it possible for the Ministry of
Justice to recall a judge if a disciplinary commission
demonstrates that the judge violated the principle of "court
independence." In effect this amendment gives the executive
branch the power of recall over the judiciary. From the day
the appeal is filed, the judge in question is suspended from
duty. The motion is then considered by five judges from the
disciplinary commission, who are selected by the Polish General
Assembly of Judges. The president of the Warsaw district court
resigned in protest over the amendment, and both the
Association of Polish Lawyers and the Ombudsman protested its
implementation. In August the Ombudsman challenged the
amendments before the Constitutional Tribunal, which had
already opened proceedings on the constituionality of the
amendments.
On July 1 a law went into effect introducing appellate courts
into the Polish judicial system for the first time since before
World War II. These courts deal with appeals based on
procedural issues only, not on the substance of a particular
case.
The controversy about former Communists and secret
collaborators continued after the fall of the Olszewski
government in 1992. A special committee was formed in the Sejm
to consider the various draft bills that would have instituted
systems of political screening for public officials. It did
not complete its work prior to the dissolution of the Sejm. A
screening provision, however, was written into the electoral
law of 1993, requiring that all parliamentary candidates sign a
statement that they had never collaborated with the secret
police. Some individuals have been tried or are being
investigated for state crimes under communism. Adam Humer, a
former employee of the state security bureau, was tried for
torturing and killing prisoners; the trial was unfinished at
year's end. Thirteen more former state security agents are
currently awaiting trial on similar charges.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
The Government does not arbitrarily monitor private mail or
telephones. There is no Polish legislation that guarantees the
right to privacy, although Poland has signed the European
Convention on Human Rights, in which Article 8 guarantees that
right. Poles do have the legal right to privacy of
correspondence, and police are not legally able to enter a
private residence without a search warrant, but nothing
prohibits the Government from creating a bank of information on
its citizens. Because of the lack of an overall revision of
the Penal Code, some laws concerning interference with
correspondence remain in effect which do not conform to
international human rights standards; however, they are no
longer enforced. Under Articles 30 and 31 of the Polish Penal
Code, a prison inmate must seek the permission of a prison
warden to contact a human rights organization. The Ombudsman
lodged a protest in 1993 with the Minister of Justice to have
these articles rescinded.
Polish law forbids arbitrary forced entry into homes. Search
warrants issued by a prosecutor are required in order to enter
private residences. In emergency cases when a prosecutor is
not immediately available, police may enter a residence with
the approval of the local police commander. In the most urgent
cases, in which there is not time to consult with the police
commander, police may enter a private residence after showing
their official identification. No allegations that Polish
police abused search warrant procedures in 1993 were reported.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
Although these freedoms are generally provided for in the
Constitution, they are subject to some restriction in law and
in practice.
Polish citizens may generally express their opinions publicly
and privately. Article 270 of the Penal Code, however, states
that anyone who "publicly insults, ridicules, and derides the
Polish Nation, Polish People's Republic, its political system,
or its principal organs is punishable by between 6 months and 8
years of imprisonment." The Government continues to use this
law against its critics. Article 273 imposes a prison term of
up to 10 years for a person who commits any of the acts
prohibited by Article 270 in print or through the mass media.
In March two students in the town of Brzeg who admitted to
shouting "Down with Walesa--Communist agent" at a demonstration
were fined the equivalent of an average Polish monthly salary
for "abusing and discrediting" the President. This decision
was overturned on appeal in July. In June, 12 people were
arrested for putting up posters announcing a demonstration; the
posters claimed that members of the Government had collaborated
with the secret police under communism. Helsinki Watch and the
Free World Fund, both New York-based human rights monitoring
groups, have called on the Polish Government to rescind Article
270 but have received no response from the Government.
The Penal Code stipulates that offending religious sentiment is
punishable by a fine or a 2-year prison term. Under this
provision of the law, in late 1992 the Christian National Union
(ZChN), a political party, brought charges against the rock
group Piersi for a song called "The ZChN is Coming." The song,
which is sung to the tune of a religious hymn, describes a
priest who gets drunk and crashes his car, and his parishioners
lament that they will have to finance the cost of a new one.
Five persons complained to the Warsaw district prosecutor that
the song had offended their religious feelings. The
prosecutor's office announced in April that it would not press
charges, and the ZChN is appealing the decision. A radio
producer was fired for playing the song on Polish Radio 3, a
government-owned station, but was reinstated after members of
the Democratic Union Party intervened.
In March a ZChN deputy unsuccessfully sued the Poznan weekly
Poznaniak over the publication of a satirical picture of the
Madonna and Child with the deputy's face superimposed on the
face of the baby Jesus. In May ZChN deputies reportedly sought
to sue a Poznan movie theater for showing the film "The Last
Temptation of Christ"; the deputies admitted they had never
seen the film, and none of the film's 600 Poznan viewers signed
the deputies' complaint. The Poznan district prosecutor
declined to pursue the case.
The print media in Poland are uncensored and independent,
although they may be subject to prosecution under the Penal
Code provisions described above. The majority of today's
periodicals have a left-of-center slant; the spectrum of
political opinion was reduced in 1993 because of the closure of
several right-of-center publications for financial reasons.
The Government owns a controlling interest (51 percent) in one
major newspaper, Rzeczpospolita, which serves as the
semiofficial newspaper of record. No barriers exist to the
establishment of private newspapers other than readership
demand and capital. Journals also appear regularly on
newsstands. Books expressing a broad range of political and
social viewpoints are widely available, as are foreign
periodicals.
Citizens have access to foreign publications and foreign radio
broadcasts.
Television is still mainly under the control of the
Government. However, regional television centers are more
autonomous and active; some are cooperatively owned and control
their own budgets and in some cases even their own
frequencies. An ever-increasing segment of radio media is
independently owned and self-financing and exposes its
listeners to a broad array of points of view.
In March a new broadcast law took effect to regulate the
licensing of the numerous private radio and television stations
which began broadcasting after the fall of communism without
sanction, in the absence of any legal means to obtain a
license. The law stipulates the formation of a National
Broadcasting Council (NBC) to implement the law. The NBC has
very broad prerogatives: it is to supervise programming,
allocate broadcasting frequencies and licenses, and apportion
subscription revenues. It may interpret these prerogatives at
its discretion. As of year's end, the NBC had granted two
licenses. Unlicensed stations are not being shut down.
The NBC is nominally an apolitical body. Although the nine
people nominated to the NBC were obliged under the law to
suspend any membership in political parties or public
associations, they were in fact chosen for their political
allegiances, nominated by the Sejm, the Senate, and the
President following political bargaining. This raised serious
questions about the independence of broadcasting from
government influence. Private broadcasters were concerned that
the awarding of licenses for the limited number of broadcast
frequencies available could be politically motivated.
Private broadcasters whose applications for licenses are
rejected may appeal to the Administrative Court, which is
empowered to rule solely on whether the procedural process by
which the NBC reached its decision was in keeping with the law,
not to examine the reason for the application's rejection.
The law stipulates that programs should not promote activities
that are illegal or against Polish state policy, morality, or
the common good. The law also requires that all broadcasts
"respect the religious feelings of the audiences and in
particular respect the Christian system of values." This
particular provision was the source of much controversy before
the Sejm finally approved it. Human rights organizations
charged that the law does not fully define the term "Christian
values," thus requiring media owners themselves to reconcile
different interpretations of religion in order to determine
what such values constitute. Since the NBC has ultimate
responsibility for supervising the content of programs, these
restrictions could be used as a means of censorship. The
penalty for violating this provision of the law is up to 50
percent of a broadcaster's annual fee for the transmission
frequency, plus the prospect of having the license withdrawn or
experiencing difficulty in renewing the license when it
expires.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Poles enjoy the freedom to join together formally and
informally to promote nonviolent causes and protest government
policies. Permits are not required for public meetings but are
required for public demonstrations; demonstration organizers
must obtain these permits from local governing authorities if
the demonstration might block a public road. For large
demonstrations, organizers are also required to inform the
local police of the time and place of their activities and
their planned route. Every gathering must have a chairperson
who is required to open the demonstration, preside over it, and
close it.
In June police used force in Warsaw's Castle Square to disperse
a demonstration of center-right parties who were questioning
the Government's ties to the former Communist security
apparatus. The organizers had obtained permission for a
demonstration and parade originating from a different
location. The Ombudsman asked the prosecutor's office to
investigate whether the demonstrators' rights were violated.
Just after the September parliamentary elections, members of
the center-right Center Alliance party held an impromptu
demonstration on one of Warsaw's main thoroughfares; police
arrested 10 people in connection with the incident, including a
journalist, allegedly for disturbing the peace. The Ombudsman
asked the Constitutional Tribunal to adjudicate the rules for
demonstrations, complaining that the rules do not specify if
district authorities may set a different route and different
destination for demonstrators. He also claimed the rules do
not specify whether, in a situation in which the demonstration
is not dissolved, police may intervene to disperse
demonstrators who refuse to change the site of their protest
(see also Section 1.c.). There has been no government
response.
Private associations need governmental approval to organize and
must register with their district court. The procedure
basically requires the organization to sign a declaration that
it will abide by the laws of Poland. In practice, however, the
procedure itself is complicated and may be subject to the whim
of the judge in charge. The Helsinki Foundation noted three
instances in 1993 in which organizations experienced problems
in obtaining court approval. The first was in Opole, where a
German organization was denied the right to change its charter
to include citizens of countries other than Poland. The German
organization filed a lawsuit to have the charter changed and
won its suit in a higher court, but the Opole judge, who
initially denied the change, filed for extraordinary powers to
regulate the group, fearing a rise in the influence of the
German minority in the region. The second occurred in Kielce,
where a society of Gypsies (Roma) ran into difficulty in
gaining court approval because of a local judge's refusal to
grant such approval to Roma; eventually, the group did gain
approval. The third instance involved a group of veterans of
the German Wehrmacht army, forcibly conscripted Poles as well
as Germans, who wanted to form a society and were denied
permission; the case had not been resolved by year's end.
A German minority organization in Opole experienced difficulty
when it applied to drop the word "minority" formally from its
name. The Government refused to allow the designation to be
dropped, even though equivalent Belarusian and Lithuanian
groups do not have the word "minority" in their names. The
Government also ruled that only Polish citizens could join
German minority groups; this is not a requirement for other
minority groups, which may induct members regardless of their
citizenship status.
c. Freedom of Religion
The Constitution provides for freedom of conscience and belief,
and citizens enjoy the freedom to practice any religion.
Religious groups may organize, select, and train personnel,
solicit and receive contributions, publish, and engage in
consultations without government interference. There are no
government restrictions on establishing and maintaining places
of worship.
The vast majority of Poles are Roman Catholic, but Eastern
Orthodox, Ukrainian Catholic, and much smaller Protestant,
Jewish, and Muslim congregations meet freely. The Catholic
Church maintains over 16,000 churches, schools, and other
institutions and continues to build new ones. It also
publishes significant numbers of books and periodicals, as does
the independent Catholic press. The Constitution provides for
the separation of church and state. State-run radio broadcasts
Catholic mass on Sundays.
As a result of the 1989 roundtable negotiations, the Catholic
Church is authorized to issue licenses to radio and television
stations which are equivalent to licenses issued by the
National Broadcasting Council; it is the only body outside the
NBC allowed to do so. The broadcast law incorporated this
roundtable decision.
A controversial ordinance regulating religious education in
schools, which was signed by the Minister of Education and went
into effect in April 1992, was also strongly supported by the
Catholic Church. In August 1992, the Ombudsman filed a list of
eight objections to the directive with the Constitutional
Tribunal on the grounds that the directive violated the
principle of separation of church and state. In April 1993,
the Tribunal ruled that it was against the law to demand
declarations from parents or older schoolchildren that the
children were not going to take part in religion classes at
school or that they attended religion classes elsewhere. It
also decreed that it was illegal to give a grade in religion or
ethics on the official school certificate if the subject was
taught outside the school. The Tribunal further supported the
Ombudsman's objection that if a bishop withdrew his
recommendation for a religion teacher, this could mean that the
teacher would lose his or her job. On the other hand, the
Tribunal ruled that hanging religious symbols in classrooms is
legal, as is a prayer at the beginning of classes. Debate in
Parliament over the future of the directive was suspended after
President Walesa dissolved the Sejm in May, leaving the rest of
the directive in effect.
In July the Government signed a Concordat with the Vatican
which, while specifying that the Roman Catholic Church and the
State are "autonomous and independent," nevertheless confirmed
the Church's right to "maintain religious instruction in
schools," permitted church marriages to be legally binding
without a civil ceremony, and obligated the State to subsidize
the Pontifical Theological Academy of Krakow and the Catholic
University in Lublin, as well as to contribute to the
maintenance of properties belonging to the Church. The
Concordat had not been ratified by year's end.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
Within the country Poles move freely and easily and may freely
change their place of residence. Foreign travel is
unrestricted, and Poles may obtain passports easily. Citizens
who have left Poland have no trouble returning. There are no
restrictions on emigration.
During the first part of 1993, Poland continued to serve as a
country of transit for illegal migrants headed to the West,
particularly citizens of the former Soviet Union, Romania, and
Bulgaria seeking to apply for asylum in Germany. The flow of
asylum seekers across the border in 1993 reached a high in
April, when border guards caught 2,186 people attempting to
cross the Polish-German border illegally. In May Poland signed
a migration agreement with Germany, as an amendment to the 1991
Schengen accord, to readmit immigrants who crossed the Polish
border illegally into Germany. The agreement specified a
6-month time period from the day of crossing into Germany
during which the German authorities are allowed to return an
immigrant. The agreement went into effect on July 1 in
conjunction with a new German law that severely tightens asylum
procedures.
Poland's position on East-West migration thus changed from a
point of transit to a potential country of first asylum. Since
implementation of the new German asylum policy began, the
number of people illegally crossing the German border from
Poland has declined greatly, and the leading Polish official
for refugee affairs reported that there had not been a
corresponding rise in the number of refugee applicants in
Poland. According to the Warsaw representative of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), however, the
Polish Government actively discouraged some refugees from
applying for asylum, especially citizens of the former
U.S.S.R., Bulgaria, and Romania. Although Poland signed the
1951 Geneva Convention on refugees in 1991, since March the
Government has stopped issuing permanent residence documents to
registered refugees (one of the provisions of the Convention),
thus limiting a refugee's ability to seek gainful employment.
The Government has further refused to allow undocumented
refugees to apply for asylum, contrary to another provision of
the Convention.
There was one known report indicating mistreatment of asylees.
The UNHCR reported that the Government deprived two Bosnian
Gypsy families of refugee status and privileges after they had
already been accepted for asylum and were living in a
government refugee facility. According to the UNHCR, the
decision to deprive the families of status stemmed from the
refugees' social behavior and therefore was not reached in
accordance with standard procedure: the daughter of one family
had attempted to commit suicide, while another Bosnian Gypsy
refugee, who was not part of either family but shared the same
nationality, was supposedly involved in a brawl, an allegation
that was disputed by witnesses.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens
to Change Their Government
Poles have the right and ability to change their government.
This right is guaranteed in the Constitution and exists in
practice. Poland is a multiparty democracy in which all
citizens 18 years of age and older have the right to vote and
to cast secret ballots.
Governmental power is divided between the President and
Parliament, which is composed of an upper house (the Senate)
and a lower house (the Sejm). The Constitution provides for
parliamentary elections at least every 4 years. The President,
elected for 5 years, has the right to dissolve Parliament when
Parliament loses confidence in the Government or when
Parliament fails to pass a budget, and Parliament may impeach
the President.
In November 1992, President Walesa signed into law the
so-called Little Constitution, which is a transition document
to be replaced when a "large," or permanent, constitution is
eventually ratified by Parliament. The Little Constitution
specifies the division of powers among the President, Prime
Minister, and Parliament and delineates ways in which a
government may be formed or dissolved. The constitutional
balance of power among the presidency, government, and
legislature remains amorphous, pending the adoption of a formal
constitution.
In May President Walesa dissolved the Sejm following a motion
of no confidence in the Suchocka government, which passed by
one vote. The Suchocka government was the fourth to fall since
Poland's first freely elected Sejm took office in 1991. In the
resulting elections, held in September, the Democratic Left
Alliance, a successor to the former Communist party, won 171
seats out of 460 in the Sejm (20.4 percent of the vote) and
formed a coalition with the Polish Peasant Party (132 seats, or
15.4 percent of the vote), with Waldemar Pawlak of the Peasant
Party as Prime Minister. The Democratic Union of former Prime
Minister Suchocka, which obtained 74 seats, based on 10.6
percent of the vote, is the major opposition party. Only three
other parties exceeded the threshold of 5 percent for
representation in Parliament, a requirement of the 1992
electoral law aimed at avoiding the fragmentation of political
representation in Parliament. This requirement eliminated most
center and right-of-center parties that had failed to form
electoral alliances.
The electoral law strictly limited the amount of broadcast time
the parties could buy and provided that all parties registered
on the ballot nationwide were entitled to the same amount of
free television time. State television provided 90 minutes
daily of free time over a 14-day period prior to the election.
President Walesa used his office to campaign on the broadcast
media's regular programming for the Nonpartisan Bloc in Support
of Reform (BBWR), which he created in the wake of the
dissolution of the Suchocka government as an alternative to the
existing parties. The other parties complained about this
discrepancy, and the electoral commission allotted them the
equivalent amount of time at a later date. According to the
election law, no opinion polls were to be released publicly
beginning 12 days before election day. However, one major
newspaper illegally ran a poll the day before the elections and
was consequently fined.
Women comprised some 10 percent of the candidates for
Parliament and approximately 15 percent of the candidates
elected. A special provision in the electoral law exempted
national minority parties from the 5-percent threshold; four
members of the German minority were elected under this
provision.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
of Human Rights
The Helsinki Committee, a major nongovernmental organization,
conducted human rights investigations without government
interference in 1993. Leading members of the Committee
reported that the Government displays a generally positive and
helpful attitude towards human rights investigations.
Two governmental organizations monitor human rights in Poland.
The Office of the Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection (the
Ombudsman), established in 1987, is an independent internal
body with broad authority to investigate alleged violations of
civil rights and liberties. The Ombudsman has no legislative
authority and is sworn to act apolitically. He registers each
case that is reported to his office and files grievances, when
appropriate, with the relevant government office.
According to the Ombudsman's office, the Interior Ministry and
the armed forces have the quickest rates of response to
grievances. There were 1,325 cases still pending in September,
however, some dating back to 1988; most of these dealt with the
issue of compensation for land that was taken over by the
Communist government.
The Ombudsman conducted aggressive investigations of human
rights infringements in 1993 in spite of an increasingly
negative governmental attitude towards his role under the
Suchocka government. Under the law, the Sejm can vote to
recall the Ombudsman if he proves himself "unfaithful to his
oath" to keep faith with the Constitution of the Republic of
Poland, safeguard the rights and liberties of citizens, and
carry out his duties impartially. As a result of the
Ombudsman's eight complaints concerning the Minister of
Education's 1992 ordinance regulating religious education in
schools (see Section 2.c.), the ZChN led the more conservative
parties in the Sejm in accusing the Ombudsman of being
"unfaithful to his oath." Nearly 80 deputies from
right-of-center parties filed a motion for a vote of no
confidence in him in April. The Ombudsman fought back, saying
his oath compelled him to promote the separation of church and
state. The motion died when President Walesa dissolved the
Sejm in May.
The second governmental institution, the Senate Office for
Intervention, investigates a wide range of grievances. In
addition to responding to grievances, it may also investigate
judicial proceedings. Created in 1989, the Office conducts
investigations and refers legitimate cases to senators whom the
investigator feels will be sympathetic to the grievance,
regardless of their district or political affiliation. If a
senator does not wish to become involved in the case, the
Office presents it to another senator or senators until it
finds someone willing to pursue the matter. The Office does
not release public reports.
There are no restrictions on visits by international
organizations.
Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
Disability, Language, or Social Status
Women
The Constitution provides for equal rights regardless of sex
and grants women equal rights with men in all fields of public,
political, economic, social, and cultural life, including equal
pay for equal work. In practice, however, women are sometimes
paid less, hold lesser positions, are discharged more quickly,
and are less likely to be promoted than men. There are no laws
providing explicit legal redress for women subjected to such
discrimination.
Women are employed in a broad variety of professions and
occupations, and a handful of women occupy high positions in
many branches of government and in the private sector.
However, certain Polish laws discriminate against women.
Under retirement laws, women may retire earlier than men, and
human rights organizations reported that, as a result,
employers were generally more hesitant to hire women. Polish
law does not adequately address equality in hiring practices.
Women are banned by law from working in 90 occupations in 18
fields of industry, health care, forestry, agriculture, and
transportation, but unions support the desire of women to gain
entry into these occupations.
Unemployment disproportionately affects Polish women, who are
more likely to lose their jobs than their male colleagues if an
employer is forced to scale down, an ever-increasing phenomenon
in the transition economy. The Senate Office of Intervention
reported that women often do not take advantage of sick leave
from work so that they will appear healthier to their employers
than their male counterparts.
Although women with infants are eligible to receive a
maintenance allowance from the State, the amount of the
allowance has not kept pace with inflation. The Helsinki
Committee reported that some progress had been made in
improving working conditions for women in 1993, and the
Government had taken some steps to improve labor laws for
women. A law providing that only women could take a leave of
absence from work to care for a sick child was amended to
include men as well.
The Helsinki Committee pointed out that men must be 21 years of
age to marry, while women need only be 18. According to the
Helsinki Committee, it is impossible to estimate the likely
extent of violence against women and spouse abuse, although it
is certainly a problem in Poland, and the cases that are
reported are probably but a fraction of the real number.
Police do intervene in cases of domestic violence, and husbands
can be convicted for beating their wives. A first offender is
put on probation; the penalty for a second offense is from 8 to
12 months in prison.
Children
No special laws exist to ensure the protection of children.
Child abuse is very rarely reported, and convictions for child
abuse rarer still. Under the law there is no special
distinction between children and adults. Until the age of 18,
parents have the right to make all decisions concerning their
children's medical treatment; the Helsinki Committee reports
cases of children being forced to have cosmetic surgery by
their parents or of parents deciding whether or not their child
will have an abortion. However, education is compulsory until
the age of 16. In divorce cases, children have no say over
which parent will be granted legal guardianship. There are no
procedures in schools to protect children from abuse by
teachers; in fact, the teachers' work code guarantees a teacher
legal immunity from prosecution for the use of corporal
punishment in classrooms. Infant mortality is higher in Poland
than in developed countries. According to Polish government
sources, this is because of the inadequate availability of
acute postnatal care and the conditions in maternity
hospitals. A center in Laski for children with the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was closed following the burning
down of one its buildings. The children have been dispersed
throughout Poland.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Poland's population is 97-percent ethnically homogeneous,
although small Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovakian, and Lithuanian
minorities reside along the borders, and a German minority is
concentrated near the southwest city of Opole. There are no
restrictions on Polish citizens from non-Polish ethnic groups
holding office. The new electoral law exempted ethnic minority
parties from the requirement to win 5 percent of the vote
nationwide in order to qualify for seats in individual
districts. Four members of the German minority party were
elected to Parliament in September.
Ethnic tensions exist in the province of Opole, which is
approximately 30-percent German. Many of the minority Germans
charge Polish citizens and the Government with discriminating
against them. Disputes centered over efforts to restore
monuments built to honor World War II German soldiers and to
put up bilingual street names, which the regional governor
claimed were prohibited by law. Controversy also centered on
the number of qualified German-language teachers provided by
the Government and the weekly number of hours of
German-language training provided in schools.
According to the Krakow prosecutor's office, seven "skinheads"
were arrested in Krakow in connection with the murder of a
German truckdriver in 1992. They have been held in detention
ever since. No charges have been formally brought against them
because the Krakow prosecutor's office and the court medical
doctors are at odds as to the actual cause of the truckdriver's
death.
All minority groups were concerned about education in public
schools of their native language and customs. Approximately
30,000 ethnic Slovaks live in Poland, mostly in the southeast.
Their main concern is that not enough Polish schools in the
region teach the Slovak language. Only about 500 Slovak
students are enrolled in Polish schools. The Government
operates two elementary schools and one high school in which
classes are taught exclusively in Slovak. The Slovak minority
also wants the Government to allow trained Slovakian priests to
come to Poland so there can be more masses said in Slovak.
Several persons were tried for desecrating the Soviet soldiers'
cemetery in Elblag during 1992. In September 1993, two men
were convicted of vandalizing it, and both were sentenced to 1
year in prison, suspended for 4 years, the performance of
public works, and a fine of about $50 to the city.
Investigations into vandalism of Soviet soldiers' graves at two
other cemeteries continued.
Roma reported that they were often victims of random acts of
violence in 1993. Many of these were minor acts, such as rocks
being thrown through house windows. One example of serious
crime, though, was a raid on a Gypsy camp outside Warsaw in
September, in which one of the participants was dressed in a
police uniform. According to the Helsinki Committee, the
police investigation is being conducted seriously and
properly. No outcome had been noted in the press by year's
end, and it was unclear whether the person involved was
actually a police officer. In a public forum of national
minority organizations, which was held with the Ombudsman in
July at the behest of the Helsinki Committee, Roma leaders
claimed that they continued to experience difficulty seeking
compensation for damage suffered by Roma during the 1991
anti-Roma riots in Mlawa.
The Ombudsman received 122 complaints from foreigners, of which
35 percent dealt with police brutality. Foreigners also
complained that they were detained without being informed of
the charges against them and for excessive periods of time and
that court interpreters were poor.
Religious Minorities
Under communism many church properties were absorbed by the
State. It is generally more difficult for the Orthodox Church
in eastern Poland than for the Catholic Church to obtain
compensation for, or the return of, its properties, the
Helsinki Committee reported. (See Section 2.c. for discussion
of government involvement in religious affairs.)
Jewish groups have complained about a playground installed on
Kalisz' former Jewish cemetery grounds. There has been no
resolution of this issue.
Violent anti-Semitic incidents are rare in Poland, and none was
reported in 1993. Despite occasional anti-Semitic rhetoric at
political rallies and demonstrations, there are no significant
anti-Semitic political parties. The neo-Fascist Polish
National Community is weak and has no seats in Parliament.
Anti-Semitic graffiti sometimes appear in Polish cities,
including on Holocaust monuments, and Jews are sometimes
subjected to anti-Semitic remarks on the street. The press
reported in December that some Poles had complained about an
anti-Semitic requirement in Poland's passport application
procedure. The requirement specified that people who emigrated
from Poland in 1968 on a one-way passport had to sign a special
declaration that they had not gone to Israel or that they had
not accepted Israeli citizenship. A subsequent investigation
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed that this
requirement had actually been overturned in 1984, but the
change was never implemented. In December the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs announced that the requirement had been
overturned permanentley. A major tension in Catholic-Jewish
relations was defused when the Pope intervened to instruct
Carmelite nuns to leave their convent at Oswiecim (Auschwitz),
which was located in the "Old Theater" immediately outside the
former concentration camp.
People with Disabilities
Poland has no laws guaranteeing rights for the disabled.
Neither buildings nor public transportation are generally
accessible to the handicapped.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
All workers, including the police and frontier guards, have the
legal right to establish and to join trade unions of their own
choosing, the right to join labor federations and
confederations, and the right to affiliate with international
labor organizations. Following negotiations with trade unions
and employers in 1992-93, the Suchocka government sent new
legislation to Parliament concerning trade union rights and
collective bargaining under the terms of the so-called Pact on
State Enterprises. Parliament was dissolved on May 31 before
the legislation could be approved.
As few as 10 persons may form a trade union, and a founding
committee of 3 persons must register the union in the court of
the province where that union's headquarters is located. A
decision of the court refusing registration may be appealed to
an appeals court. Interbranch national unions and national
interbranch federations must register with the provincial court
in Warsaw. As of September, 4 national interbranch industrial
unions were registered, along with some 17 other major
independent industrial branch unions and 3 agricultural unions.
The Independent Self-Governing Trade Union (NSZZ) Solidarity is
affiliated with the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions and the World Confederation of Labor. Solidarity has a
membership of 2.2 million (with roughly 81 percent paying
dues). Spin-offs from mainstream Solidarity include the
Christian Trade Union Solidarity (16,200 members) and
Solidarity '80 (156,000 members), a militant rival from which a
group broke away to form "August 80."
The National Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ), the Communist-
inspired trade union, was registered in 1983 as the sole legal
alternative to the then repressed NSZZ Solidarity. According
to trade union legislation of 1991, OPZZ was obligated by law
to relinquish "inherited" properties and return assets it
acquired (or an approximation of their value at the time they
were seized) following the imposition of martial law. The OPZZ
did not have sufficient funds to pay Solidarity's claim
outright; consequently, negotiations throughout 1993 centered
on property claims, some of which had already been improperly
transferred either to private hands or to branch unions no
longer affiliated with the OPZZ. As a general rule, Solidarity
has rejected the OPZZ's suggestion that Solidarity's claims be
paid out of the state budget. In a complaint to the
International Labor Organization (ILO), the OPZZ alleged that
the amount of zlotys (Polish currency) it had been assessed to
pay back had been unduly indexed, but the ILO Governing Body
found that indexation by the Government was not inconsistent
with the requirements of freedom of association in principle.
The OPZZ claims a membership of 4.7 million, a figure that
independent observers reject as inflated. Solidarity's
continued support for the new collective bargaining legislation
is contingent on provisions to verify union membership claims.
Until then, Solidarity refuses to join negotiations with the
OPZZ on the grounds that its inflated membership figures
exaggerate its strength at the bargaining table. Among
several other independent industrial branch unions, the largest
and most influential is the Free Miners' Trade Union, which
claims more than 300,000 members.
All these trade union organizations operate independently of
state control. In alliance with the Social Democrats of the
Republic of Poland, the OPZZ, the National Teachers' Union, and
several others won 63 seats in the September parliamentary
elections under the banner of the Democratic Left Alliance.
The Solidarity trade union ran a full slate of candidates
independent of any political parties but failed to meet the
necessary threshold of 5 percent of the national vote. It will
only have nine representatives in the Senate, the upper house
of the new Parliament.
The Trade Union Act of 1991 is less restrictive than the 1982
version passed soon after the imposition of martial law, but it
still prescribes a lengthy process before a strike may be
launched. During this period, the law, when strictly adhered
to, provides several opportunities for employers to challenge a
pending strike--including the threat of legal action. An
employer--the Act makes no distinction between state-owned and
private firms--must start negotiations the moment a dispute
begins.
Negotiations end with either an agreement or a protocol
describing the differences between the parties. If
negotiations fail, a mandatory mediation process ensues; the
mediator is appointed jointly by the disputing parties or,
lacking agreement between them, by the Minister of Labor and
Social Policy. If mediation fails, the trade union may launch
a warning strike for a period of up to 2 hours or seek
arbitration of the dispute. Both employers and employees have
frequently questioned the impartiality of the mediators.
A full-fledged strike may not be launched until 14 days after
the dispute is announced (strikes are prohibited entirely in
the Office of State Protection, in units of the police,
firemen, military forces, prison services, and frontier
guards). A strike may be proclaimed by the trade union after
approval by the majority of voting workers and should be
announced at least 5 days in advance. If the strike is
organized in accordance with the law, the worker retains his
right to social insurance benefits but not pay. If a strike is
"organized contrary to the provisions of the law," the workers
may lose social insurance benefits; organizers are liable for
damages and may face civil charges and fines. Laws prohibiting
retribution against strikers are not consistently enforced; the
fines imposed as punishment are so minimal that employers can
easily afford to pay them.
The Government anticipated that the Trade Union Act would
discourage labor disputes, but in fact the absence of a stable
process for resolving them contributed to a worsening of
tensions on the shop floor in 1993. The Suchocka government
hoped that the collective bargaining aspects of the Pact on
State Enterprises would help remedy that situation, but shop
floor tensions turned into full-fledged strikes before the
legislation could be passed. The Government faced a major
strike in the Silesian coal basin in January and only narrowly
avoided a simultaneous stoppage by public service workers.
Tensions in the latter sector led to another strike in April,
culminating in a successful no confidence motion in the
Government launched by Solidarity parliamentarians in May.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
The May 1991 law on trade unions and collective disputes
generally creates a favorable environment to conduct trade
union activity through provisions for time off with pay, as
well as facilities and technical equipment in the enterprise.
Notable weaknesses in the law include minor penalties for
antiunion discrimination and, given Poland's ongoing economic
transition, the lack of specific provisions to ensure that a
union has continued rights of representation when a state firm
undergoes privatization, bankruptcy, or sale.
Unions, management, and workers' councils set wages in ad hoc
negotiations at the enterprise level; collective bargaining as
such does not exist. When formal agreements have been reached,
they are routinely ignored and overtaken by enterprise-level
disputes. In response to complaints from the Federation of
Mining Unions and the Occupational Union of Employees in the
Copper Industry regarding the refusal of the Government to
negotiate with the strike committee of miners and copper works
group unless Solidarity also participated, the ILO Governing
Body urged the Government to begin negotiations with the
complainants with a view to concluding agreements on the
procedure for settling collective disputes and in order to
dispel any possibility of discrimination against them.
A common complaint voiced by organized labor is that the Polish
laws concerning trade unions and collective disputes presume a
fully developed market economy with private employers as
negotiating partners. Because the State still is the dominant
employer in Polish industry, government ministers get drawn
into routine labor disputes, thereby unduly politicizing the
process of labor-management relations. The Pact on State
Enterprises, initialed by several of the major trade unions in
1992, is designed to address these weaknesses by codifying
labor's involvement in the process of enterprise restructuring
and privatization. As it stands, however, the law does not
take into account the special circumstances created by Poland's
transformation from a Socialist centrally planned economy to a
market-oriented system in which many grievances arise from
Poland's massive, structural economic adjustment. Women, for
example, are generally the first fired in a mass layoff because
it is assumed that men are the principal wage earners in a
family.
Throughout 1993, the Government continued to impose a ceiling
on wages in state enterprises through a penalty tax, the
so-called popiwek, in an effort to link wages to increases in
productivity and reduce inflationary pressures in the state
industrial sector. The penalty tax is charged on any state
company (which does not produce for export) that increases its
average wage in excess of a government-set "inflation
coefficient." The enforcement of the popiwek tax on excessive
wage growth effectively discouraged enterprise or sectoral-
level collective bargaining on wages.
Current government policy aims to liberalize investment
procedures for both domestic and foreign firms rather than to
promote special incentive programs. Special duty-free zones
exist in or have been contemplated for some 15 to 20 locations
throughout Poland but, with the exception of one zone in Poznan
and one in Mielec (near Krakow), have not thus far attracted
much attention. Thus, traditional export processing zones that
relax legal guarantees do not, at this time, constitute a
threat to workers' rights to organize. As in all other areas,
however, collective bargaining does not exist.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
Compulsory labor does not exist in Poland, although it is not
prohibited by law. The Polish Government has signed the ILO
Convention, which prohibits compulsory labor.
d. Minimum Age for Employment of Children
The Labor Code forbids the employment of persons under the age
of 15. The employment of persons aged 15 to 18 is permitted
only if that person has completed basic schooling and if the
proposed employment constitutes vocational training. The age
floor is raised to 18 if a particular job might pose a health
danger. The Government enforces legal protection of minors,
but its inability to monitor the growing private sector leaves
officials less certain that the problem does not exist.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
A national minimum wage is negotiated every 3 months by the
Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and trade unions. Minimum
wages for state-owned enterprises are roughly $85 (Zl
1,650,000) per month at the October 1 exchange rate, which is
insufficient to provide a worker and family a decent standard
of living. The minimum wage has the force of law, but a
significant number of foreign guest workers receive less than
the minimum wage, especially in the construction industry. The
average monthly wage is roughly $197 (Zl 3,845,000).
There is a standard legal workweek of 42 hours which allows 6-
or 7-hour days, including at least one 24-hour rest period.
The Legal Code defines minimum conditions for the protection of
workers' health and safety; a new draft of that code was
approved by Parliament. Enforcement is a growing problem
because an ever-increasing portion of Polish economic activity
is in private hands and outside the purview of the State Labor
Inspectorate, which is unable to monitor both the state and
private sectors of the economy. In addition, there is a lack
of clarity concerning which government or legislative body has
the responsibility for enforcing the law. About 102,944
serious work-related accidents were reported in 1992, involving
644 deaths and 3,380 cases of dismemberment. This represents a
downward trend in work-related accidents, but as the Government
itself has noted, work conditions in Poland are poor.
Standards for exposure to chemicals, dust, and noise are
routinely exceeded.
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