Law On Holocaust Rhetoric Unconstitutional, Polish Attorney General Says
Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — The Polish attorney general’s office described as partly unconstitutional a law passed last month that criminalizes blaming Poland for Nazi crimes.
Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro published a statement on the law Thursday.
The legislation, which came into force earlier this month, imposes fines or up to three years in jail on anyone who ascribes “responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich.”
The attorney general’s office published its statement on the website of the Constitutional Court, which was tasked by the president with checking whether the law was constitutional, the French news agency AFP reported. President Andrzej Duda signed the legislation into law last month after it was overwhelmingly passed by both houses of the Polish legislature.
The office said that penalizing acts committed abroad independently of the laws in place there was against the Constitution, which opposes “excessive interference.”
It added that the law was “dysfunctional,” could have “opposite results than those intended,” and could “undermine the Polish state’s authority.”
The law’s passing prompted a crisis in Poland’s relations with Israel, the United States and Ukraine. Critics of the law include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it “baseless.” Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, warned it is detrimental to debate accurate research of the genocide. And Israeli politicians, including the opposition lawmaker Yair Lapid, said it whitewashes what they called Polish complicity in the Holocaust – an allegation many Poles find offensive and that the Polish government rejects.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
