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The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has confirmed the application of the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in relation to a conviction for offending the religious feelings of others through publicly insulting the Bible. As the statements expressed in an interview for a news website had not amounted to hate speech and were neither an abusive attack, nor threatening public order, the ECtHR found a violation of Article 10 ECHR. The applicant in this case was Dorota Rabczewska, a popular pop singer known as Doda. In 2009 she...

Legislative work on the Law on Professional Artists is nearing completion. A new draft has been published on the pages of the Government Legislation Centre. The draft is expected to go to the Parliament (Sejm) in the near future. The aim of the draft is to provide the lowest-earning artists with a subsistence minimum. Among other things, the draft provides for a surcharge on mandatory social and health insurance premiums. The surcharge is to be a social benefit. Funds for the surcharge are to come from the reprographic fee. This fee has been in operation in Poland since 1994 and is collected...

The new Polish Law on Medical Devices has come into force., repealing the previous Medical Devices Act of 2010. The new law has been issued in connection with EU Regulation 2017/745. An EU Regulation is a legal act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously. Regulations can be distinguished from directives which, at least in principle, need to be transposed into national law. However, it leaves the issues of advertising and administrative penalties, among others, to be regulated by the member states. The entry into force of the above-mentioned...

On 23 September 2021, the European Commission decided to refer Poland to the Court of Justice of the European Union for breaching the requirements of the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC), safeguarding the independence of the Urząd Komunikacji Elektronicznej (Office of Electronic Communications - UKE) the National Regulatory Authority (NRA) for telecommunications. Using an urgent procedure in May 2020, Poland had amended certain provisions of the Polish telecommunications law concerning the appointment and dismissal of the Heads of the UKE. With the same amending legislation, the...

On 11 August 2021, the Polish Parliament (lower chamber) adopted an amendment to the Law on Radio and Television, commonly referred to as "lex TVN". Why there is a controversy around this bill? The opposition points out that it targets TVN, a TV station allegedly unfavourable to the government, while the ruling party argues that the bill aims to prevent the Polish media from being bought by companies from non-democratic countries such as Russia, China or Arab states. The passing of the bill by the Parliament coincided with the TVN group applying for an extension of its licence. A provision...