Discrimination in the actions of police officers
Discrimination in the actions of police officers

Summary/Abstract: The key institution guaranteeing the safety of citizens and protecting publicorder in Poland is the Police. It has been endowed with specific competences,including the right to use force and interfere with human rights. When perform-ing statutory tasks, police officers must be guided by the constitutional princi-ple of equality of citizens before the law and the right to equal treatment bypublic authorities and the prohibition of discrimination in political, social oreconomic life for any reason. However, in the performance of daily duties bythe officers of this formation, there are cases of discrimination and marginal-ized groups: national and ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees, foreigners andothers. Also in the ranks of the Police itself, there is a phenomenon of discrim-ination, resulting in conflicts between officers. The current law gives citizensand police officers affected by discrimination the opportunity to submit com-plaints to both control bodies functioning in the Police, foundations and rele-vant national and European institutions. In order to discuss the issue of dis-crimination, an analysis of applicable legal regulations, service guidelines,guides, procedures and scientific literature was carried out. Applied statisticaldata were also obtained from the National Police Headquarters and from theCommissioner for Human Rights, which were analysed, presented and dis-cussed. When analysing complaints about discriminatory behaviour of policeofficers, the following categories were distinguished, i.e.: inhuman or degrad-ing treatment; violation of the right to freedom; procedural and administrativeactivities; handling complaints or uncultured attitude towards citizens. Citizensset high demands on the Police in terms of standards of actions taken to ensuretheir safety. By enforcing the implementation of this obligation, they imposeon the Police the need for a thorough analysis of all aspects of this issue.

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