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Strategic Litigation Program

Program coordinator:

Adam Bodnar

Program employees:
Maciej Bernatt
Dorota Pudzianowska

 

Contact:

e-mail:

Program description

The Precedential Cases Program was inaugurated at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in October 2004. Within the confines of the Program, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights joins or instigates strategically important judicial and administrative proceedings. Through its participation in these proceedings, the Program aims to achieve breakthrough, precedential verdicts amending the ruling practice or legal regulations in specific legal issues that cause series doubts from the perspective of human rights protection.

 

The program's activity is based on the method of so called strategic litigation, common in the practice of many nongovernmental organizations worldwide. During the period of its current activity, the Program has participated in or supported practically all the most important cases in the scope of human rights taking place in Poland. The program handles or coordinates approximately 60 cases concerning such rights as freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly, association, personal liberty, the right to a fair trial and access to legal assistance, rights of prisoners, ban on discrimination, as well as rights of employees.

 

The Program's activities have aroused great interest from the media. In the period of the Program's 2-year activity, over 100 press articles have come out describing the actions taken by the Program. The Program's associates were also the authors of numerous publications discussing specific issues associated with these cases. In conducting individual cases the Precedential Cases Program cooperates with legal offices, particular attorneys, legal advisors, experts and volunteers - in most cases based on the principle of pro publico bono. 

 

The Program's activities have lead to numerous breakthrough verdicts by the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Court and the European Court on Human Rights. Currently a series of crucial cases are awaiting verdicts. The Program's greatest successes include the Supreme Court verdict of 13 October 2005 establishing the principle of compensation liability for the so called wrongful birth and the Constitutional Tribunal verdict of 16 January 2006 recognizing as unconstitutional the regulations of the Code of Penal Proceedings that allow the dismissal of cassations in penal cases deemed as "obviously unjustified" without the necessity to present written justification. In this case the Foundation, as the first ever nongovernmental organization, appeared before the Constitutional Tribunal acting as "amicus curiae".

 

The actions of the Precedential Cases Program are of crucial significance for developing the potential of the nongovernmental sector in Poland and applying the mechanism of strategic litigation to achieve statutory objectives.