Requirement for hunters to have regular health checks rejected after split in Poland’s ruling coalition

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s parliament has rejected a proposal to require hunters to undergo regular physical and mental health checks in order to keep their gun licences.

The decision was made after a split in the ruling coalition, with the centre-right, agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL) joining the conservative opposition in voting against the bill.

Currently, there are over 137,000 registered hunters in Poland. They only have to undergo checks when first applying for a gun permit.

By contrast, other groups handling weapons, such as police officers and soldiers, undergo additional periodic examinations. Private individuals who have a weapons permit for personal protection also have to undergo checks once every five years.

One of the parties in the ruling coalition, the centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), last year submitted a proposed law to require hunters to likewise undergo health checks every five years (or every two years for those aged over 70).

Supporters of the bill pointed to the fact that every year incidents take place in which hunters accidentally shoot people, often later claiming to have mistaken them for animals. They argue that ensuring hunters are in good health would reduce such occurrences.

But the proposed legislation was met with strong opposition from the hunting community, which argued that hunters would be in danger of losing their gun licences due to the insufficient number of doctors authorised to carry out such health checks, which they note are also expensive to undertake.

In an opinion on the bill submitted by the Polish Hunting Association (PZŁ), it highlighted that hunters would have to visit multiple specialists to obtain relevant medical documents.

The PZŁ also pointed to the fact that the proposed amendment did not present data on the number of gun accidents involving hunters and claimed that, according to its own figures, between 2020-2023, only 22 people were shot and seven died during millions of hunts and so-called “sanitary shootings”.

On Thursday, when the bill was voted on by the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, 225 MPs voted to reject it while only 203 were in favour of allowing it to proceed for further legislative work.

While Poland 2050 and its partners in the ruling coalition, The Left (Lewica) and the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), were in favour of the bill proceeding, PSL joined the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) and far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), both opposition parties, in voting against it.

“I am disappointed that the bill has ended up in the bin,” climate minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska, one of the originators of the proposed changes, told broadcaster Radio Zet. “There is a very high public expectation that all gun owners should undergo periodic examinations.”

This week, her ministry published the results of a study it conducted that it says found 86% of Poles in favour of regular physical health checks for hunters and 88% in favour of regular mental health checks.

However, PiS MP Edward Siarka argued that the proposed measures would, by potentially reducing the number of licenced hunters, worsen the spread of African Swine Fever (which is carried by wild boar) and reduce Poland’s security because hunters can help defend the country, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Meanwhile, Urszula Nowogórska of PSL, an agrarian party much of whose support comes from rural areas, described the bill as a “conscious action aimed at disarming” hunters, who she described as a community that “serves to build state security thanks to their skills and experience”.

Previously, in 2018, an obligation was introduced requiring hunters to undergo medical checks every five years. However, it was repealed in 2023, before it had even gone into force after a five-year grace period.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Jakub Włodek / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Agata Pyka

Agata Pyka is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a journalist and a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She specialises in Polish and European politics as well as investigative journalism and has previously written for Euractiv and The European Correspondent.