Poland: Suspension of residue bills to asylum

AI members polish Parliament should reject an invoice This would allow the government to temporarily suspend the right to asylum on the border of Poland with Belarus, Human Rights Watch said today. The European Commission should act to maintain the Treaties of the European Union and the obligations of the Member States, including to provide access to the asylum procedure.

“Poland, which currently holds the EU presidency, should lead by example and ensure that people who run away from war and persecution are offered the opportunity to individually evaluate their asylum applications,” said Lydia GallSenior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This draft law flys in the face of international and EU obligations in Poland and should be voted.”

The draft law risks formalizing illegal and abusive impulses in progress on the border of Poland with Belarus. It would expose people to abuse and inhuman disorders in Belarus, violating the principle of non -refuge, which forbids return to a country where people may face torture or an inhuman or degrading treatment.

If it had passed, it would allow the Polish government to suspend the right to request asylum for a period of up to 60 days of specific sections of its border. Extensions beyond this period could be authorized with the parliamentary approval and endlessly renewed. Exceptions will be made for vulnerable people, including unaccompanied children, pregnant women, those who require special treatment due to their age or health, citizens of Belarus and anyone can “prove unequivocally that they risk.

The explanatory notes of the draft law say that border guards will evaluate who to qualify for exemptions. But border guards are not trained or equipped to make such determinations, which should be made by the Office of Foreigners in Poland. And people requesting protection in Poland on the border with Belarus have told Human Rights Watch that Polish border guards ignored their requests to request asylum. This is, in fact, a long -term concern and emphasizes that such an arrangement does not provide adequate refulence protection.

The formal suspension of the right to asylum could completely seal the Poland-Belarus border, where the Polish authorities are already engaged in illegal and abusive impulses, Human Rights Watch said.

In Detailed observations on the draft lawThe UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) emphasized that the non-refining obligation is applied in “all the situations in motion”, including “in the context of” instrumentation “or the so-called” weapons “of migrants and refugees” and requires Poland for to ensure access to asylum procedures. UNHCR mentioned that access to the territory and asylum procedures are necessary for any vulnerability projections and has expressed concern if there is a call procedure and if border guards are adequately trained to make such projections.

Helsinki Polish Foundation for Human Rights stated in A December statement That the draft law is not in accordance with the Polish Constitution, it cement the model of illegal impulses and risks violating the prohibition of collective expulsions according to international law. The proposed law would also violate the obligatory obligation over the EU Member States, under the status of fundamental EU rights, to ensure the right to asylum.

The Polish government, in Explanatory notesHe says that the authority to suspend the right to asylum is necessary because of what it calls the instrumentation of migrants by Belarus and Russia. In 2021, Belarus began to facilitate visas to the Resortisants in the third country and to encourage, even forcing their journey to Poland.

Human Rights Watch Research from December 2024 It indicates that the dynamics of immigration in Poland could have indeed to change and that many people now travel to Moscow on tourist or student visas, then make their way to Belarus and the border with Poland.

However, the impulses of Poland without an adequate process, Collective expulsionsviolates the EU law including The Charter of Fundamental Rights. Summary Pushbacks is the prohibition of mistreatment as the violence that people internal and The European Court of Human Rights judgments.

Human Rights Watch has documented illegal pushes from Poland to Belarus in 2021, 2022and 2024including violence and abuse of migrants and asylum seekers stuck in Belarus as a result of Poland’s impulses. The adoption of the law risks to deepen those human rights abuses against asylum migrants and applicants, Human Rights Watch said.

Research on Human Rights of December 2024 shows that illegal and sometimes violent impulses in Poland in Belarus continue. Twenty-two interviewed people said they told the Polish border officials that they want asylum, but that the guards took them to the border fence, without an adequate process, and pushed them to Belarus. They said that the guards used pepper spray against them, abused them in other ways and broke their phones.

The draft law is based on problematic laws and practices regarding the asylum introduced by the previous Polish government, including granting Legal coverage for pushbacksand the introduction exclusion areas along frontier Prevention of journalists, help workers and independent experts to access the area. The aid workers faced criminal charges in both the previous governments and the current for assisting the migrants caught in the border area.

The European Commission has remained largely silent in terms of illegal impulses of Poland. Instead, the Commission seemed to provide political coverage for illegal practices on EU borders in a December 2024 communication Presentation of the provisions of the treaty he claimed Article 72 of the EU treaty. In fact, the obligation of non -reflection is part of the usual international law, which means it is mandatory for states permanently and cannot be derogated by the states.

Instead of condemning the rights rights of the Member States on EU borders, the Commission, as a legal tutor of treaties, should state that it will initiate legal actions – procedures – outside Poland for violating the EU asylum if the law is adopted. , Said Watch Human Rights.

“The claims regarding the instrumental migration do not eliminate the institutions in Poland and the EU of their obligations for human rights,” Gall said. “Brussels should resort to Warsaw to remove the invoice immediately and stop the pushes.”