National and ethnic minorities in Poland and their status according to the domestic law

• Author: Roman Kisiel - Wieslawa Lizinska - Szymon Kisiel
• Pages: 363-369

363

ROMAN KISIEL, DR WIESŁAWA LIZISKA, SZYMON KISIEL

NATIONAL AND ETHNIC MINORITIES IN POLAND AND

THEIR STATUS ACCORDING TO THE DOMESTIC LAW

Introduction

The direction of the policy towards national minorities chosen by the

States has immense influence on the situation of minority groups in those

countries. The specification of that policy is identified with identification

of the needs, behaviors and expectations of communities, in particular the

communities of individual national minorities as important in Poland.

The national minority is the community that lives in a given country but

differs from other citizens by its national characteristics. The national

minority is differentiated by the language, culture, beliefs, tradition or

religion (Ethnicity, nationalism and minority rights 2004, KISIEL,

SATKIEWICZ 2009).

In Poland the policies towards the national minorities were different

under the two systems. As a consequence it gave raise to different

expectations of that community concerning its legal, political and social

situation. In Poland, at the threshold of 1990s a significant change took

place in the policy of the State towards the national minorities (BARCZ

1990). Not only establishing the effective legal and political protection of

those groups, but also a change in their perception by the majority

became a challenge to the policy towards that minority. That issue was,

undoubtedly, difficult because from the very beginning it was burdened

with overcoming the historical memory and political past (ŁODZISKI

2005).

Acceptance of the rights of the people belonging to national and

ethnic minorities became the political condition for accession of not only

Poland, but also other European countries to the European Community.

The radical change in the entire global policy of the Central and Eastern

Europe during the early 1990s forced setting the protection of national

minorities in Poland in the wide perspective of bilateral and regional

relations. Regulation of the status of national minorities in the legal

system of Poland through introduction of the constitutional protection of

minorities and the special legal acts caused no major doubts although the

special, statutory regulation for protection of the minorities (the Act of

the 6th of January 2005 on national and ethnic minorities and the regional

language) resulted in new storm centers of many disputes (KISIEL,

SATKIEWICZ 2008).