Poland

This section offers a summary of the main legislation on transitional justice adopted by the member state and, when available, a pdf with the document, together with the main decisions of national and international tribunals in relation to these measures. This is a non exhaustive list and will be updated and completed in a permanent basis. We also offer images of the museums that deal with memory issues in each EU country.

Information

Legislation

 

Main provisions

Year

Act on amnesty and annulment of certain crimes and offences (see text here)

1989

Act on combatants and some people who had been victims of war and post-war repressions (as amended in 2007) (see text here)

1991

Rehabilitation Act (amended in 2007) (see text here)

1991

Screening Law (also known as Lustration Law) (see text here). Amended in 2007 (see text here)

1997

Senate declared the soviet-occupied Poland as non-democratic and totalitarian state

1998

Law condemning the communist dictatorship imposed by the Soviet Union and Josep Stalin

1998

Law stating that judges serving in the period 1944-89 could be brought before a disciplinary court and removed from office if was proved that they had issued unjust sentences or obstructed the defendant's rights

1998

Law establishing the Institute of National Remembrance - Commission of the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation “IPN” (see text here)

1998

Public apologies speech (see text here)

2001

Act on the Internal Security Agency and Intelligence Agency

2002

Act on implementation of the entitlement to compensation for the property left beyond the current borders of Poland (see text here)

2005

Act on the change of the act on pension provision for professional soldiers and their families and of the act on pension provisions for employees of the Police, Agency of Internal Security, Intelligence Agency, Services of the Army Intelligence, Central Anticorruption Office, Border Guards, Office for the Government Protection, State Fire Brigades and Prison Officers and their families (see text here)

2009

Act on compensation for the families of victims of group independence activities in years 1956 – 1989 (see text here)

2009

Amendment to the Criminal Code (use of symbols of the repressive past) (see text here)

2009