Search Results for: Poland

Belarusian law students enrolled at European Humanities University are filing reports with JURIST on current circumstances in Belarus under the constitutionally-disputed presidency of Alexander Lukashenka. Katsiaryna Vasilionak files this dispatch from Vilnius, Lithuania.    A decree on passports that came into effect late last year has effectively stranded tens of thousands of Belarusians living abroad who [...]

Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau detained on Wednesday former deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Piotr Wawrzyk for his role in allegedly influencing the issuing of Polish visas by expediting visa applications in exchange for payments. Wawrzyk insisted that he was innocent and was released on bail. He faces a maximum of ten years [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found Lithuania liable on Tuesday for assisting the US with the torture of a man from Saudi Arabia at Detention Site Violet, a secret CIA prison in Lithuania, in 2005.  The court found that Lithuania violated several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights against the applicant [...]

The Polish Ministry of Infrastructure announced Tuesday that protests along the Polish and Ukrainian borders carried out by Polish truckers have come to a temporary halt until March 1 due to an agreement facilitated by Minister of Infrastructure Dariusz Klimcza. Protests began November 6, 2023, due to Polish truckers’ insistence that the European Union reinstate [...]

The Law and Justice, a right-wing party in Poland, called upon its supporters to participate in a Thursday protest in defense of freedom of speech, media and democracy against the Civic Coalition, which is the current ruling political alliance in Poland. Since taking power in late 2023, the Civic Coalition and Law and Justice have [...]

Belarus’s permanent representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Andrei Dapkiunas announced on Monday that Belarus would refrain from inviting observers from the OSCE to monitor the country’s upcoming parliamentary election. The election is currently scheduled for February 25. Dapkiunas explained that the decision has been taken due to certain geographical and [...]

Poland’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Czeslaw Siekierski signed an agreement on Saturday with Teresa Kubas-Hul, the provincial governor of Pokarpackie, and Roman Kondrow, the representative of the farmer group Oszukana Wieś (Deceived Village), to suspend the months-long blockade of the border crossing point with Ukraine at Medyka. Under the agreement, the minister promised [...]

Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, issued an order on Wednesday for the liquidation of three prominent state media companies – television network Telewizja Polska (TVP), national radio broadcaster Polskie Radio and news agency Polska Agencja Prasowa (PAP). According to Sienkiewicz, the aim of this move is to ensure the continued operation [...]

Every December 10th, international lawyers, governments, and advocacy groups commemorate Human Rights Day. This marks the day in 1948 when, improbably, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in Paris by a nascent United Nations General Assembly under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt. This year, as the Declaration turned 75, I found myself in [...]

The EU’s top court Thursday ruled that a chamber of the Polish Supreme Court, the Extraordinary Review and Public Affairs Chamber, “does not constitute a ‘court or tribunal’ for the purposes of EU law.” The Extraordinary Review Chamber was held to “not have the status of an independent and impartial tribunal” due to the process [...]