The lower house of the Parliament of Poland, known as Sejm of the Republic of Poland (SRP), approved a bill permitting the country’s Armed Forces, the Police and the Border Guard to use firearms against migrants attempting to illegally cross the Belarusian border. The Sejm approved the bill on July 12 but it still needs to be approved by the Parliament’s upper house, the Senate.

The new bill, named the Homeland Defence Act, will allow armed officers to use firearms in a wide range of situations, including attacks on the life or health of an officer or another person, direct attacks on the inviolability of the state border, preventive self-defence and repelling a person disobeying officers’ request to drop a weapon or any dangerous item. The term “officer” includes army soldiers, police officers and border guards.

According to Poland’s Ministry of Defence, the bill intends to address the country’s migration crisis. However, the proposed measures sparked human rights concerns among activists and NGOs, both locally and internationally.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR) stated that the Polish Senate needs to amend certain provisions of the proposed bill in order to comply with Poland’s obligations under the constitution and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (ECHR). The NGO explained that disregarding direct coercion principles would threaten the lives of vulnerable people, such as children and pregnant women, who are protected by national laws. The HFHR also added that approving the exclusion of border guards’ liability would be comparable to giving a “licence to kill” to the country’s soldiers.

Furthermore, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Europe criticized Poland’s new bill by asserting that:

These proposals set a dangerous precedent for the regulation of the use and potential abuse of firearms in Poland and should be rejected. Under international law and standards, the use of force against individuals must be strictly necessary and proportionate to the threat posed; the use of firearms is prohibited except in situations where there is an imminent threat of death or serious injury. Any attempt by the Polish authorities to undermine these principles would be unlawful.

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty also expressed his concerns about the proposed provisions and called the Senate to refrain from adopting them in their current form. In a letter to the Marshal of the Senate, O’Flaherty pointed out that the proposed bill would provide armed forces in border areas with a “disincentive” legal framework that would deter their compliance with the rule of proportionality in the use of firearms. He further added that the exclusion of border guards’ liability could “foster a lack of accountability and suggest a lack of commitment to human rights obligations.”

This new bill comes in the context of an escalating migration crisis in Poland since 2021. In an attempt to hinder the flood of migrants crossing the country’s border with Belarus, the Polish government implemented the “Shield East” program to fortify its Eastern border. The government decided to take further actions to secure the country’s borders following the death of a Polish border guard.