Poland’s president signed a bill into law on Wednesday providing for the temporary suspension of the right to claim asylum.
The prime minister announced the move last year to stem illegal entry. Poland has been struggling since 2021 with heightened pressure at its border with Belarus, a situation it says has been orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow as a “hybrid war” tactic.
President Andrzej Duda said he had decided to sign the controversial bill into law as “it is necessary for the strengthening of our border security.”
“I encourage the prime minister to take active steps in the matter of Polish security,” Duda’s office posted on the X platform.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged Duda to sign the bill as every day our Border Guard officers, police, and soldiers expose their lives and health to defend our borders from illegal attempts to cross them.”
Tusk said migrant smugglers were becoming ever more aggressive in their tactics and that one of the causal factors for attempted entry is the ability to lodge immediate asylum claims. Last year, a Polish soldier was killed in a knife attack at the Belarusian border.
The new law provides for the right to claim asylum to be suspended for up to 60 days in the event of unsustainable migratory pressure. The suspension period is extendable.
When the proposal was announced in October last year, it drew immediate condemnation from rights groups, with a Helsinki Foundation lawyer describing it as “short-sighted, unhumanitarian, and contrary to human rights.”
The founder of the Polish Humanitarian Action NGO said that Tusk was effectively suspending human rights in Poland.
“If the prime minister announces something like this, it means that he is also suspending the Geneva Convention, the Human Rights Convention, and many other conventions and laws,” Janina Ochojska said. “Does this mean that they will not be binding in Poland?”
Under international law, countries are obliged to offer people asylum.
However, Poland has found a sympathetic audience from the EU in its attempts to stop the flow of asylum-seekers over its eastern border. In 2024, the European Council stated that “Russia and Belarus... cannot be allowed to abuse our values, including the right to asylum, and to undermine our democracies.”
