Rights body to review Poland's new surveillance law
A pan-European rights body is to review a controversial law passed by Warsaw, posing a fresh challenge to Poland’s conservative government.
The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) has now asked the Venice Commission to assess Poland's amended state surveillance law, the rights body's spokeswoman Tatiana Baeva said on Monday.
The Venice Commission's final opinion on Poland's surveillance law may be adopted on June 10-11, Baeva said.
The new surveillance law expands the authorities' access to digital data and loosens the legal framework limiting surveillance by law enforcement.
The rights group Amnesty International has described the law as "a major blow to human rights."
The government says it amended the law to address a ruling by the constitutional court that the legislation was imprecise and provided insufficient legal protections.
It says greater surveillance is also needed to combat the threat of terrorism.
Last Friday, the Council of Europe's advisory panel, known as the Venice Commission, issued an opinion accusing Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party of effectively crippling the country's constitutional court, a verdict that could put Warsaw on a collision course with the European Union.
While opinions of the Council of Europe are non-binding, they carry weight with the EU Commission, which has begun an unprecedented inquiry into the rule of law in Poland that could result in the suspension of Warsaw's voting rights in the EU.
Poland's ruling party, PiS, is a eurosceptic party which won last October's election with a big majority.
The party says it has a broad mandate to assert Warsaw's independence from Brussels and to redesign laws and institutions to reflect its traditional values.
Support for the party remains strong, with the latest poll putting it on 37 percent, almost 20 points ahead of the opposition.
This as thousands of people regularly attend opposition rallies to protest against the government.
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