Poland’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government’s ban on media visiting the border with Belarus – where a state of emergency was declared in response to a migration crisis – violates constitutional freedoms. It therefore overturned convictions against three members of the press who accidentally violated the ban.
“People who work as journalists have a unique legitimacy to be in places where important events take place,” said the judges in their justification. They found the entry ban to violate rights to freedom of movement and access to information.
After thousands of people – mainly from the Middle East – began attempting to cross into Poland from Belarus in the summer, the government introduced a state of emergency along the border. The measures, which went into place at the start of September, curbed a number of rights and freedoms in the area.
Among the restrictions was a ban on entry for non-resident civilians, including members of the press. The state of emergency was in place for the constitutionally allowed maximum of 90 days, then in December was replaced by very similar new measures, which still prevent the media from freely entering.
On 28 September, three journalists from the Franco-German Arte station and French press agency AFP were detained on the territory of the emergency zone for breaching the ban. The following day, they were punished by a court with a reprimand.
Two journalists of the Franco-German TV channel Arte and a Polish reporter for @afp were detained by Polish police and held overnight after they "mistakenly" entered the zone along the Belarus border closed to the media under state of emergency rules.https://t.co/4gnXl7JPjU
— Kris Janowski (@JanowskiKris) October 4, 2021
However, in November Poland’s commissioner for human rights, Marcin Wiącek, brought the case to the Supreme Court, claiming that movement restrictions introduced under the state of emergency breached Poland’s constitution and media law.
He argued that, in order to comply with Polish law, the government should have designated specific “places and locations” as well as “given times” for the emergency state. But instead it imposed a constant ban on entry to the entire territory of 183 municipalities along the border.
This, said Wiącek, “prevented journalists exercising their constitutional freedom to obtain information in the [border] area”. The ban on entry introduced under the state of emergency therefore “should be considered unconstitutional, and thus illegal”.
This week, the Supreme Court recognised the commissioner’s appeal as “obviously justified” and the punishment of the journalists as “obviously wrong”. It therefore overturned the ruling of the lower court.
Rozporządzenie rządu ws. zakazu pobytu w strefie stanu wyjątkowego – niekonstytucyjne. @SN_RP_ uniewinnił dziennikarzy po kasacji #RPO. #granica #media #dziennikarze #stanwyjątkowy https://t.co/Djwvmv1vqq
— Biuro Rzecznika Praw Obywatelskich (@BiuroRPO) January 19, 2022
The judges stressed that the constitution guarantees freedom to “gather and broadcast information”, and that this applies in particular to journalists. It also found it “unjustified” to assume that journalists could pose a “threat to the functioning of the state”, reports Onet.
Moreover, the court agreed with Wiącek that the blanket nature of the emergency zone – covering a large area and constantly in place – “cannot be assumed…justified by the threat to security related to the situation on the border”.
“The Supreme Court cannot find a reason for which such restrictions on liberty, and indirectly affecting the possibility of exercising a number of other rights and freedoms, would be justified in these circumstances,” it added. “There has been a disproportionate interference with freedom of movement.”
Main image credit: Agnieszka Sadowska/ Agencja Wyborcza.pl.
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna
