Venice Commission members again in Poland
14:39
Members of Council of Europe's human rights watchdog Venice Commission arrived to Poland on Thursday. The body is preparing an opinion, which will be presented at the next plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in June, on amendments to the police bill.
During a two-day visit to Warsaw, the three members of the Venice Commission will meet representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Chancelleries of the lower house of parliament and the Senate, the Bar Council, Poland's Ombudsman (Commissioner for Human Rights), the Special Services Coordinator and NGOs.
The amendments to the new law passed in January give greater freedom to government workers and public services in their acquisition of data. This has attracted some controversy, with government ombudsman Adam Bodnar declaring on the same day that he will file a complaint with the Constitutional Court about certain subsections of the bill.
Speaking on Radio Trójka on the same day, Bodnar elaborated on the reasons for filing the claim, saying that he is worried that citizens' privacy laws may be violated because of the new legislation, as private electronic data may be seized by government forces without proper justification or oversight.
