Draft law on changes in special services and the Police incompatible with the EU law

The Sejm commenced works on the Senate draft law implementing the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal from the previous year. The Tribunal found that lack of external control over the acquisition of billings, etc. by the special services violates the Constitution. “There is a lot to indicate that the draft law on changes in legal provisions creates nothing but an illusion of actual control over the process of making such data available to special services” – says Barbara Grabowska-Moroz, HFHR lawyer.

Despite the fact that the judgment was entered already a year ago, the Council of Ministers has failed to prepare a draft law implementing the judgment. Within the Special Services Committee, a team was created whose task was to prepare a draft law implementing the sentence and directives of the judgment. In the end, however, the works on implementing the judgment were commenced by the Senate Legislation Committee. The Senate draft gained support of representatives of the Council of Ministers. At the plenary session at the end of July this year, the Senate decided to submit the draft law to the Sejm.

Bureau of Research of the Chancellery of the Sejm issued an opinion on the compatibility of the draft with the law of the European Union. The opinion was prepared in an urgent manner. It says that the draft includes provisions which are incompatible with the EU law due to, inter alia, too long list of offences justifying provision of the data, lack of mechanism of prior control by the court or an independent authority over the provision of the data, as well as imprecise and subjective period of processing the provided data.

The draft was submitted the plenary session of the Sejm. Yesterday, it was discussed during the Sejm session. Two motions were submitted for dismissing the draft in first reading. The motions will be voted on in the course of the block of votes during the current session of the Sejm.

In the course of social consultations, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights presented the Senate with its opinion on the draft law. The Foundation pointed out that the draft in fact does not implement the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal and furthermore it pays no heed to the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case of Digital Rights Ireland in which the Court annulled the Data Retention Directive.