Polish border guard violated law by sending injured migrants back to Belarus, finds court

A court has found that Poland’s border guard violated the law when sending Afghan and Ethiopian migrants back to Belarus after they had injured themselves while crossing the border. One of them had made clear his wish to claim asylum in Poland.

The rulings follow several previous findings by Polish courts against the border guard’s controversial practice of “pushing back” migrants into Belarus.

Both rulings concern attempted crossings by migrants in spring last year and were delivered by a court in the city of Białystok on 5 March this year, but were reported for the first time only this week by news website Wirtualna Polska.

One of the complaints was brought by an Afghan man who fell while trying to climb over the wall Poland built on the border and broke his foot. He was treated in a Polish hospital but then later returned to Belarus.

The other case was brought by an Ethiopian man who broke his shin while falling from a ladder being used to climb over the border wall. The court noted that he is a gay man who had fled from his homeland, where homosexuality is illegal, arriving in Moscow in April 2023 before entering Poland the following month.

He too was treated for his injuries in a Polish hospital but, instead of being taken for surgery, was transported back to the border despite requesting asylum in Poland. After spending a day stuck at the border because he was unable to move, he was taken back to a Polish hospital and then to a facility for asylum seekers.

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In both cases, the court found that the border guard should have accepted asylum requests from the migrants or conducted checks on the legality of their stay in Poland, reports Wirtualna Polska.

It therefore upheld complaints from the two men and awarded them legal costs. The rulings also open the way for the pair to launch civil proceedings to claim compensation.

In its justification for the rulings, the court noted that there have already been five previous cases in which the border guard has been found to have violated procedures when returning migrants to Belarus.

The practice of so-called “pushbacks” at the Belarus border began under the previous national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government and has been continued under the new, more liberal ruling coalition that replaced it in December 2023.

That policy has been criticised as both inhumane and unlawful by a number of human rights organisations, including the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.

In February this year, the government for the first time published data on the practice, showing that over 6,000 pushbacks took place in the six months between July 2023 and January 2024.

Activist group Grupa Granica reported this week that, based on border guard data, over 2,000 pushbacks were carried out in April this year and over 3,000 in May.

Last month, the government reintroduced an exclusion zone at the border, banning unauthorised people from entering the area. The measure was taken in response to a surge in attempted crossings and aggression towards Polish officers, including one incident that led to the death of a soldier.

Main image credit: Agnieszka Sadowska / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.