Legislation Impacting Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Radicalisation Efforts
Law on Foreigners (Aliens) contains humiliating norms that require all foreign nationals to be able to produce necessary documents proving identity, right to live and work in Poland and proof of income at first request.
Article 196 of the Criminal Code punishes offending religious feelings with a fine or two years’ imprisonment, which can be seen as discriminatory towards atheists.
The law discriminating against Jews and Muslims is in force since January 2013, banning the ritual slaughter according to the Muslim and Jewish customs. In January 2013, following the petition of animal advocates, the Polish court prohibited ritual slaughter of cattle in Muslim and Jewish customs. On December 9, 2014, Constitutional Tribunal issued a verdict regarding the ritual slaughter of cattle. According to the court, the ban on the ritual slaughter of cattle is contrary to the constitution of the country and discriminates against Jews in social and economic life The decision does not have any specific requirements regarding the number of cattle that can be slaughtered, which according to some judges can lead to permission of commercial ritual slaughter of cattle to produce Kosher and Halal meats.
We should also mention two laws that could significantly improve the situation of minorities, but were rejected by the parliament or the president of the country. In particular, we are talking about amendments to the Law on National, Ethnic Minorities and Regional Languages, 2005, which was vetoed by President Andrzej Duda. The president argued his decision on the high cost of introducing a new regulation. Amendments adopted by the parliament on January 6, 2015 assumed that the minority language can be used in relations with municipal authorities along with the state language. This advantage applies to those municipalities where the number of minority representatives whose language is “supportive” exceeds 20% of the population.
The second law dealt with the rights of sexual minorities - the Civil Partnership Act. The law was rejected in the first reading by the majority of the deputies on May 26, 2015
In July 2016, the Polish government decided to reformat the administrative division of the country and unite district Opole with the predominant residence of the Polish majority, with four other municipalities, home to more than 20% of the German minority. According to the Polish ombudsman, Mr. Adam Bodnar, the above decision will affect the rights of this minority, since after the accession of Opole, it will be "diluted" and will account for less than 20% of the population. The secret lies in article 9 of the Law "On National and Ethnic Minorities and Regional Languages" of January 6, 2005, which gives the right to use the language of national minorities as an auxiliary language in those regions where its population is more than 20% of the whole number.
In April 2016 Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło abolished the Polish Council for the Prevention of Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. The decree of the government came into force in June 2016.
