Poland loosens firearms rules for soldiers defending border amid migration crisis

Poland’s president has signed into law new rules making it easier for soldiers and other uniformed officers serving at the border to use firearms. They will now no longer face criminal liability for employing their weapons in certain cases.

The law was proposed by the government in response to a surge in aggression from some migrants seeking to cross the border from Belarus, which in one case led to the death of a Polish soldier. It was approved almost unanimously by parliament.

However, NGOs have protested against the legislation, which they say gives officers a “licence to kill”. Both Poland’s and the Council of Europe’s commissioners for human rights have also criticised the bill.

“I was happy to sign the law that will enable the border to be protected even better, even more efficiently, also with increased security for Polish soldiers,” said President Andrzej Duda on Thursday, during celebrations of Poland’s annual Armed Forces Day.

Duda, who is an ally of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party and often an opponent of the current ruling coalition, thanked the government for drafting the law and MPs for supporting it.

“This is fundamentally important,” said the president. “I believe it will make the difficult work of our soldiers easier. It will make it easier to carry out their tasks as efficiently as possible.”

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The law amends Poland’s penal code to exclude, under certain conditions, criminal liability for the use of weapons by officers at the border in violation of normal rules of engagement.

Those conditions include “repelling a direct and unlawful attack” that threatens the “life, health or freedom” of officers during an “attack on the inviolability of the state border”, or when “counteracting actions directly aimed” at such an attack.

They also include cases when a person refuses to obey calls to abandon weapons or other dangerous items, or when they try to seize a weapon from an officer, and the “circumstances require immediate action”.

The bill also provides for state-funded legal aid for officers put on trial for using weapons at the border and it introduces the legal concept of military operations conducted on Polish territory during times of peace.

The law will enter into force 14 days after it is published in the Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland. As of Friday morning, it had not yet been published.

Last month, the bill was strongly criticised by Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, who warned that the new rules could discourage border agents from using force proportionally and could result in the use of firearms not being properly investigated.

A number of NGOs in Poland, including the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the Batory Foundation, and Free Courts, have also protested against it.

Main image credit: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.