Centrum Pomocy Prawnej im. Haliny Nieć » HNLAC and ENS present a joint submission to the UN Human Rights Committee

In August 2024, the Halina Nieć Legal Aid Centre, together with the European Network on Statelessness (ENS), submitted a joint submission to the Human Rights Committee as part of the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which included Poland in this session.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism was established on 15 March 2006 by UNGA resolution 60/251, which also created the Human Rights Council. The purpose of the Review is to regularly assess the human rights record of UN member states, submit recommendations, discuss ways to improve identified issues, and address possible violations in this regard.

The UPR process is multi-stage. The review begins with an analysis of the national report and other documents submitted by the assessed country, and a discussion in which all members of the General Assembly may participate. The next stage is the preparation of a final report (outcome report), containing questions, comments and guidelines for the assessed country. Importantly, civil society organisations may also submit their comments in order to supplement the information on the state of human rights observance in a given country. The final stage of the review is the approval of the report during the plenary session of the Human Rights Council. In the period between individual cycles, an assessment of the State's efforts to implement the adopted recommendations is also carried out.

Poland was last assessed in November 2022 and received 233 recommendations, of which it accepted 89. Among the latest recommendations were also those concerning the scope of the Centre's activities, relating to the observance of the rights of refugees and foreigners in Poland. In March 2023, Poland presented its opinion on these recommendations, and during the upcoming, 142nd session of the UN Human Rights Committee scheduled for the period from 14 October to 8 November 2024, the Committee will adopt a list of list of issues prior to reporting for Poland.

Using the opportunity to submit additional recommendations, the CPPHN, together with the ENS, presented its comments on:

- non refoulement
- detention of foreigners
- statelessness.

In its position, the CPPHN pointed out in particular the following issues:

Non-refoulement principle:
• The provisions of domestic law that are still in force undermine the guarantees resulting from the non-refoulement principle and enable the use of push-backs against foreigners arriving in Poland from the territory of Belarus
Detention of foreigners:
• High rate of detention of migrants in relation to less willingly used alternative measures and the risk of arbitrary and long-term detention in some cases.
• Detenrion of minor foreigners, without providing them with appropriate conditions of stay and related issues concerning in particular an efficient and reliable assessment of age.
• Insufficient protection against detention of particularly vulnerable persons, including victims of violence and torture, shortcomings of the procedure for effective identification of these categories of persons.
• Insufficient access to specialist assistance, including medical and psychological, for persons in detention.
Statelessness:
• Poland is not a party to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which means that guarantees for persons without citizenship are incomplete.
• There is no definition of statelessness in Polish law, and in practice the term “stateless person” is interpreted inconsistently, which may have significant implications for related migration procedures.
• Poland does not have a procedure for identifying and determining the status of stateless persons, nor a dedicated path to obtaining protection for such persons. Existing legal options to regulate the status of stateless persons are insufficient.
• Protection against statelessness of children born in Poland lacks certain safeguards.
• There are no clear legal safeguards against detention of persons for whom there is no realistic prospect of removal, including stateless persons who are particularly affected by this problem.
• Some stateless persons fleeing the war in Ukraine encounter difficulties in obtaining meaningful protection due to deficiencies in Polish legal provisions on statelessness.

The document containing our comments can be found in the Publications section.