24 No. 67 JUSTICE the law, e.g., the necessity to identify all the heirs of the owners who were deprived of ownership, providing ownership documents hard to come by, spellings of names etc. These last requirements especially affect Holocaust victims and their heirs, since the heirs are often scattered in many countries, often difficult to locate, and many documents (such as death certificates) are missing. The amendment to the Code of Administrative Procedure is flawed and will adversely impact the ability of victims of Communist nationalization to seek truth, justice, and fair compensation. With this process already having been administratively difficult and tortuous, in effect, these parties will have been victimized two-fold. Firstly, by the original forced seizures of property by unaccountable totalitarian regimes with contempt for fundamental human rights, and now, many decades later, by government authorities and lawmakers who want to limit and restrict processes by which cases can be investigated and pursued to at least receive appropriate compensation. Misinformation Regarding the Amendment Both national and international organizations raised many objections during the legislative process. As a result, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement, supposedly to clarify the concept and background of the new law. The Ministry pointed out that the amendment implements the obligation to amend the Code of Administrative Procedure imposed on the parliament by the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal of May 12, 2015. However, after reading the reasoning behind the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal, it appears that the extent of the change in the Code of Administrative Procedure does not, in fact, reflect the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal of May 12, 2015. It should be noted that in many respects the amendment goes beyond the framework outlined in the 2015 judgment and distorts the conclusions and meaning of that judgment. Indeed, on May 12, 2015, the Constitutional Tribunal issued a ruling in which the principles of permanence of administrative decisions and protection of vested rights were considered. The Constitutional Tribunal noted that annulment of administrative decisions on the grounds of there being “no legal basis” or due to a gross violation of law was too vague and that they should be subject to a ten-year period, after which the decision cannot be eliminated from legal circulation. In such a case, however, the intent was that it should only be possible to declare its issuance in violation of law and therefore open the way for the claimant to seek damages. In short, the Constitutional Tribunal judgment held that the annulments of administrative decisions on the aforementioned grounds should similarly be subject to a ten-year period, after which the decision cannot be reversed. While they acknowledged that a decision could not be reversed after this ten-year period, they added that even after declaring a decision as being in violation of the law, one could still claim proper compensation. In our opinion, this should have been the end of the (recent) proposed amendment, now adopted, if its primary goal was to implement the Constitutional Tribunal judgment. Additionally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announcement was directed at ensuring that the compensation proceedings pending in courts would not be closed. Indeed, the amendment will not lead to the closure of pending civil proceedings for compensation, but only those which were conducted on the basis of legally valid decisions declaring previous decisions in violation of law. These proceedings may still result in a court judgment. However, with regards to initiating proceedings for compensation, it is still necessary to obtain prior administrative confirmation that the original decision was issued in violation of the law (which is no longer possible regarding decisions made more than 30 years ago). Nonetheless, new cases for compensation for the issuing of illegal acts by the Communist authorities can no longer be initiated. Therefore, the real consequences of the new law were unjustifiably denied in the announcement made by the ministry, and subsequently upheld by other representatives of the authorities. In fact, the cases that are to be closed immediately are administrative cases concerning annulment of the nationalization decisions or confirmation that those decisions were issued in gross violation of the law. Civil cases concerning compensation for unlawful nationalization will not be closed, but no new civil cases for compensation can be initiated. Polish law requires a prior administrative decision that proves a violation of the nationalization law in order to commence civil proceedings for compensation. There were many other misconceptions held by both the government, and by those who opposed the amendments and criticized them. Before signing off on the bill, President Andrzej Duda explained that the amendment is necessary as it puts to rest a so-called “wild-reprivatization” process. The term “wild
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