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Authors and Affiliations

Karolina Wierczyńska
Łukasz Gruszczyński
Aleksandra Mężykowska
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Abstract

The Polish Government’s proposal, submitted in autumn 2017, for a comprehensive reprivatisation bill revived the international discussion on the scope of Polish authorities’ obligations to return property taken during World War II and subsequently by the communist regime. However, many inaccurate and incorrect statements are cited in the discussions, e.g. the argument that the duty of the Polish authorities to carry out restitution is embedded in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocol No. 1. This article challenges that claim and analyses the jurisprudence of the Convention’s judicial oversight bodies in cases raising issues of restitution of property taken over in Poland before the accession to both of the above-mentioned international agreements. In the article I argue that there is no legal basis for claiming that there exists a legal obligation upon the Polish State stemming directly from international law – in particular human rights law – to return the property and that the only possibly successful legal claims in this regard are those that can already be derived from the provisions of the Polish law applicable to these kinds of cases. In its latest rulings, issued in 2017–2019, the European Court of Human Rights determined the scope of responsibility incumbent on Polish authorities in this respect.

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Authors and Affiliations

Aleksandra Mężykowska
ORCID: ORCID
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Abstract

The Parliament of the Republic of Poland was one of five European parliaments which – in view of the full-scale aggression by Russia against Ukraine which commenced on 24 February 2022 – adopted resolutions declaring the Russian Federation as a state associated with terrorism. The Polish acts are consistent with resolutions adopted on the same subject by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the European Parliament of the European Union (EP).
Although not legally binding, the adoption of these resolutions have a large symbolic dimension and may have a negative impact on the perception of and possibilities of Russian participation in the international arena. From the Polish perspective, the national decisions linking Russia with terrorist activities will influence decisions taken within the sanctions regime, as well as with regard to the legal qualification of certain acts under Polish criminal law in the course of proceedings conducted by Polish prosecution authorities in relation to the war. Finally, as long as the war continues and the assessment of Russia as a terrorist state remains in place, it will not be possible to restore and maintain ordinary diplomatic, economic and other relations with that state.
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Authors and Affiliations

Aleksandra Mężykowska
1
ORCID: ORCID

  1. Department of Constitutional Law and European Research, Institute ofLegal Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences

Authors and Affiliations

Karolina Wierczyńska
Łukasz Gruszczyński
ORCID: ORCID
Aleksandra Mężykowska
ORCID: ORCID

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