Red Tape Hot Box on bureaucrats
Here are some cautionary tales concerning life for contemporary citizens of this fair land.
A young female acquaintance, advised of an imminent business trip abroad, realised her passport had expired and, quite understandably, felt an immediate gnawing pain in her stomach. In any other country, there's such a thing as an emergency passport procedure. But not in this one. Still, off she trotted to the passport office - that's the one with "Abandon Hope all Those Who Enter Here" over the door - replete with explanatory letters from her boss. Needless to say, the po-faced bureaucrats refused to co-operate in any way at all. Go to the back of the queue! But there is a happy ending because our unfortunate victim chanced upon a kindly soul who took pity on her, and within a week a new passport was pressed into her warm little hand.
We learn two things from this tale. First, the passport office is perfectly capable of spitting out documents at short notice, if it wants to. But it doesn't. The system exists to humiliate the individual who is, of course, the obedient servant of the state and the petty functionaries, not the other way around. Second, it is unquestionably illegal under the human rights conventions to which Poland is a signatory to obstruct freedom of movement in this way. Time for a test case.
Another passport story: a young mother married to a foreigner, desirous of obtaining a Polish passport for her child, was told she had to trek all the way to her hometown at the other end of the country to do it. When she politely explained the inconvenience this would involve, she was greeted with stony silence. This absurdity occurs, by the way, because unreconstructed communist spooking law does not recognise that people who move, in this case to Warsaw, are actually there at all. So all the good lady's bureaucratic trivia - passport, driving licence, taxes - are sent to an address where she hasn't resided for six years, and will never do so again. This time she and her husband rebelled. He created a frightful fuss and threatened diplomatic intervention, mentioning the word "embassy" in unmistakable tones.
This did the trick. The passport was ready the following week. But not before a further hurdle had been jumped, with another charmer questioning whether children of mixed-nationality parents are actually entitled to Polish citizenship at all. Do you detect a hint of xenophobia there somewhere?
I almost forgot. The husband's embassy produced the child's second passport in 24 hours. Of course.
Finally, the story of a man who was roused from his sick bed and ordered to report immediately to the office of a notary. With a temperature high enough to fry eggs on his forehead, he stood in a little cupboard, signed a piece of paper, and was relieved of zł. 50. And this little sheet of paper? This was to authorise another person to queue for him to complete a residency application.
In New Delhi and Bombay and similar places, it is fashionable to pay professional queuers to go about the sundry commands of the state, get railway tickets, and so forth. So it turns out there is a direct connection between Poland and Asia after all. One professional Q-artist has learned half a dozen languages to prevent her brain from turning to jelly. Another turned to poetry. Really desperate, that.
All these stories are linked by a common theme. They instruct us how the state sets out to humiliate its own citizens and "guests in our country" alike. Any sense of the state as the friend, protector, servant and ally of the individual is totally absent. Here is the answer as to why virtually everyone will put one over on the authorities if they get the slightest chance. It is because they detest them. No-one trusts anyone inside those grim structures identified by red and white plaques.
But it's a good country in which to follow the trade of notaire publique. Because, you see, you cannot live without them. On that concluding note, there's a good joke going around. If there is a Polish heaven, you'll find it easily because it's the one with a queue. But if you didn't advise of your expiry in advance, you'll be standing in it for eternity.
Red tape bugging you? Tell Mateusz about it at mdembinski@wbj.pl.
A young female acquaintance, advised of an imminent business trip abroad, realised her passport had expired and, quite understandably, felt an immediate gnawing pain in her stomach. In any other country, there's such a thing as an emergency passport procedure. But not in this one. Still, off she trotted to the passport office - that's the one with "Abandon Hope all Those Who Enter Here" over the door - replete with explanatory letters from her boss. Needless to say, the po-faced bureaucrats refused to co-operate in any way at all. Go to the back of the queue! But there is a happy ending because our unfortunate victim chanced upon a kindly soul who took pity on her, and within a week a new passport was pressed into her warm little hand.
We learn two things from this tale. First, the passport office is perfectly capable of spitting out documents at short notice, if it wants to. But it doesn't. The system exists to humiliate the individual who is, of course, the obedient servant of the state and the petty functionaries, not the other way around. Second, it is unquestionably illegal under the human rights conventions to which Poland is a signatory to obstruct freedom of movement in this way. Time for a test case.
Another passport story: a young mother married to a foreigner, desirous of obtaining a Polish passport for her child, was told she had to trek all the way to her hometown at the other end of the country to do it. When she politely explained the inconvenience this would involve, she was greeted with stony silence. This absurdity occurs, by the way, because unreconstructed communist spooking law does not recognise that people who move, in this case to Warsaw, are actually there at all. So all the good lady's bureaucratic trivia - passport, driving licence, taxes - are sent to an address where she hasn't resided for six years, and will never do so again. This time she and her husband rebelled. He created a frightful fuss and threatened diplomatic intervention, mentioning the word "embassy" in unmistakable tones.
This did the trick. The passport was ready the following week. But not before a further hurdle had been jumped, with another charmer questioning whether children of mixed-nationality parents are actually entitled to Polish citizenship at all. Do you detect a hint of xenophobia there somewhere?
I almost forgot. The husband's embassy produced the child's second passport in 24 hours. Of course.
Finally, the story of a man who was roused from his sick bed and ordered to report immediately to the office of a notary. With a temperature high enough to fry eggs on his forehead, he stood in a little cupboard, signed a piece of paper, and was relieved of zł. 50. And this little sheet of paper? This was to authorise another person to queue for him to complete a residency application.
In New Delhi and Bombay and similar places, it is fashionable to pay professional queuers to go about the sundry commands of the state, get railway tickets, and so forth. So it turns out there is a direct connection between Poland and Asia after all. One professional Q-artist has learned half a dozen languages to prevent her brain from turning to jelly. Another turned to poetry. Really desperate, that.
All these stories are linked by a common theme. They instruct us how the state sets out to humiliate its own citizens and "guests in our country" alike. Any sense of the state as the friend, protector, servant and ally of the individual is totally absent. Here is the answer as to why virtually everyone will put one over on the authorities if they get the slightest chance. It is because they detest them. No-one trusts anyone inside those grim structures identified by red and white plaques.
But it's a good country in which to follow the trade of notaire publique. Because, you see, you cannot live without them. On that concluding note, there's a good joke going around. If there is a Polish heaven, you'll find it easily because it's the one with a queue. But if you didn't advise of your expiry in advance, you'll be standing in it for eternity.
Red tape bugging you? Tell Mateusz about it at mdembinski@wbj.pl.
