Podlasie area of decay, or who to get off in the name of defence [talk]

krytykapolityczna.pl 1 month ago

In fresh weeks, Parliament has unanimously passed a law on circumstantial rules for the preparation and implementation of strategical investments in the field of state defence and the establishment of protection zones for closed areas. The parliamentary and then the legislature vote went unobtrusive. There has been no public debate on the draft law, even though it assumes in no another circumstantial law the scope of the powers of state authorities to get properties, both municipal and private.

The Act is connected primarily with plans to build the alleged Shields East, so its inhabitants of border regions - in the north and east of Poland are looking peculiarly closely. Wojciech Siegień talks about the effects introduced by this regulation with a lawyer and humanitarian lifeguard from Podlasie I was Kamil Syller.

Listen to me. SPOTIFY:

Wojciech Siegień: Is there inactive private property in Poland?

Kamil Syller: In the border area, property rights no longer be since 2021. erstwhile I left the home at night and placed border guards in civilians walking on my property, it occurred to me that, contrary to what many parties preach, property rights in Poland are neither sacred nor specifically respected. And last year, erstwhile I read the assumptions for the Defence Investment Act adopted by the Sejm, I knew that private property would become a fiction in part of our country. The question was only about expropriation – whether it would be like in the real property economy, where there are negotiations on price, compensation – whether it would be a shoe option.

And what did it turn out to be?

The shoe.

What does this mean in practice for property owners to whom MON will apply?

The owner must besides know that MON is reporting to him, and access to this cognition will not be obvious. This bill contains various fictions, e.g. the presumption of service. The legislator assumes that the notification will always be effective, whether the owner has received the correspondence or not. possibly there are persons to whom this mode of expropriation will dispel household events. For example, the voivode will send to an outdated address a announcement of initiation, co-owners ExpropriationAnd individual gets the money to divided up.

So the voivode can compose a announcement about taking over the property to the Berdyches, you can not choice it up and not bloom it, or really know you get it, and that doesn't change the situation in which the process of expropriation is going on?

Yes, and if you have committed any negligence in the past, which is to say that you have not updated your old address for correspondence, you may not really know that you are losing your land, your house, or your grandfather's field. You besides have no way of appealing or looking into the files. But that's not what struck me the most in this bill.

Just what?

Rigor of immediate feasibility. According to the bill, the army can enter your territory with an investment immediately, covering itself with public interest. In practice, it might look like you're getting a notice, you want to appeal, and they're already entering with the rigor of immediate feasibility and you're expected to get out of this land.

What's the term? How long is the bill "immediately"?

The legislature predicted 120 days to decision out. That's 4 months for real estate, for emptying premises and another rooms. But at that time, your land could be under construction.

Is there going to be any financial assistance in the move?

For this purpose, PLN 10 1000 is provided. It's not a problem to get out in 4 months erstwhile we're talking about an empty home that the heirs scattered around the planet argue about. But if individual has a farm, it cannot be packed and moved – neither in 4 months nor for 10 thousand.

You mention that erstwhile the humanitarian crisis began on the border with Belarus, you saw officers walking around your territory. In the light of this defence record, can the service specifications operate on your property before you take it over?

According to the Act, they are to come to the property owners and talk to them about planned activities, specified as measurements or research. And only after specified conversations do they study to the voivode, which gives approval to enter the property. But if they don't get along, the voivode inactive gives permission.

In another expropriation regulations, specified as road construction, will the decision of the voivode besides be crucial?

According to the provisions of this law, we are actually dealing with a property fiction at the minute erstwhile the investor is interested. due to the fact that behind the voivode is an investor. The voivode is only an component of the administration that executes the investor's orders.

An investor is an army?

The investor are various units that may be subordinate to the MON, but may besides be the Military Intelligence Service, Military Counterintelligence Service, peculiar Services, Interior and Administration Minister or arms companies. It only depends on what the organizational decision is going to be, who is going to act as an investor. However, the voivode, which is an component of government administration, will be the enforcer of the decision. He will not make the substantive decisions himself, he will simply find out what to do – and conduct the proceedings.

So we have the concentration of the state's power in the individual of the voivods, whose bill gives unprecedented prerogatives. What tools do we have as citizens? What if individual comes to my land and says that it is essential for the army?

You can appeal: either to an instance superior to the voivodes, that is, the minister, or in a complaint procedure to the court. However, I am afraid that specified conduct will besides be a fiction, due to the fact that the individual interest will lose to the public interest. Under the law, 30 days after the start of construction, the administrative court can only conclude that the decision infringes the law. That's it. This will even apply to a decision taken as a consequence of a crime, a decision issued by an official, which should be excluded from the case (e.g. due to apparent conflict of interest) or a decision issued in gross violation of the law.

So the court will find out. What about any kind of violation charge?

Not expected.The judgement of the court does not entail any consequences, even if a gross violation of the law is found. I don't know how it's possible, that kind of thing can only be imagined in war conditions. And we're talking about a bill whose records will besides work in peace.

For that, the court will grant us moral justice.

Yes, we will stay with a sense of harm, without land, but we will be moral winners.

We are talking about this bill, due to the fact that it is she who is to pave the way for the implementation of the task Shield East. Where we live, there are very valuable natural sites. I say since a citizen has no tools to defend against arbitrary decisions of state authorities, nature is at all in a lost position.

Nature conservation provisions are mostly excluded on the basis of this peculiar law, only attractions are provided. It does not include the Nature Conservation Act, there is no request to get decisions, and the views of various authorities on the impact on nature will be de facto ornamentals to the request for a decision to authorise a strategical defence investment.

There are mechanisms in the peculiar law that drown the impact of investment on the environment, expressed as an work to look for "minimising actions" or "alternative solutions", but I can't imagine it, besides after the experience of building a barrier at the border and in general the militarisation of the region on nature, that it will truly gather a group and search alternate solutions. There is so a natural compensation option. but there are no rules that describe and regulate them. Compensation can so consist in the fact that in exchange for Natura 2000, where a defence investment will be created, the investor will plant the forest in a akin area elsewhere.

Any?

Looks like it. In particular, the substance is left to the fantasy of a regional environmental director.

So an integrated management plan for Bialowieża Forest, from which the politicians of the ruling coalition have been so excited in fresh days, can you throw it in the basket?

If an investor decides to build a field in Białowieża National Park so that the military can practice in highly hard natural conditions extracting an armored transporter from the swamp, then the manager of BPN may compose an opinion that he does not agree. That's it. Like I said, this opinion is not binding in any way.

At a gathering in Hajnówka in November, a typical of the MON and generals responding to the locals' questions announced that there would be no expropriation of private property, unless incidentally. On the another hand, for the construction of the Shield East, the military will first get land from the state and local government.

As far as self-government is concerned, there's a regulation in the bill that entertains me all time I see it. It states that if there is simply a social or economical interest in this, the municipality (or another local government unit) may waive in full or in part compensation for the property lost as a consequence of defence investment. So simply giving up compensation for any resource is presented here as a right. As a municipality we have a “right” to waive compensation.

We are inactive talking about this bill in the context of our region, the territory of Hajnowski and plans to build the Shields East. But this bill isn't just about border areas?

Of course. This law applies to the full territory of the country (only excluding marine areas) and has no time limits for its operation. The shield East is mentioned in this law only as an example of the alleged key investment in the defence needs of the state.

Thus, investments in defence can be equally well realised in Sopot, due to its strategical location.

That's right. The authoritative materials on the National Fear and defence Programme – the Shield of the East, published by MON, mention the construction of the Shield of the East across the east and Northern Borders. The Act does not state that it was passed to regulate only this 1 peculiar investment. There is no territorial exemption there, so you can imagine that you can make a landing ground for military helicopters in the Tatras. It's either enlarge the ground or build a brand-new 1 anywhere in the country. And to take over any land.

But there's 1 exception in this bill...

On the basis of an amendment tabled by the KO parliamentary club, which represented his vice-president, MP Joanna Frydry, it was stated that it does not concern the land of the household garden. If we wanted to defend the Bialowieża Forest from invasive military investments, we should divided it into plots and set up a Rod.

The bill passed unanimously. But nobody talks about its effects, mainstream media completely ignored this vote, there is no discussion about it in publicist programs.

431 MPs voted in the Parliament, all present at the time. This shows the coherence of parliamentarians' thinking, or the consistency of their convictions about voters' expectations. And I think they're convinced that things like the bill says they're going to happen somewhere far, off the border.

I liked the wording from a local podlaskie warehouse, where 1 of the entrepreneurs in the context of the construction of the Shield East said that the government treats Podlasie as a crushing zone. I think that politicians and society have recognised that border areas are a crumpling region that can be crushed at the same rate as foreseen in this law. On the another hand, they do not take into account that they may besides be in a crumpled zone.

The military can build anywhere and they do not should be elements of strictly military defence infrastructure. On the basis of this Act, various things can be built that will be under the management of the army or another services, due to the fact that the Act besides mentions peculiar services and units subordinate to the Ministry of abroad Affairs. The sub-ladium crumpling zone, which began with an illegal region with a ban on staying in 2021, can easy decision anywhere, even to the western border.

In the region of Białowieża Forest, we know this story: part of the military unit area in Unknown Bor was sold by the Military Property Agency to a private investor who rebuilt it into an exclusive hotel. Do you see the hazard that this bill will be utilized to take over attractive land in the vicinity of the Białowieża Forest or Augustowski Lake District, to then dispose of it to relatives and acquaintances of the rabbit?

It sounds like a political fiction, but it's possible. In accordance with the provisions of the Real property Management Act, expropriated property may be utilized for purposes another than those specified in the Expropriation Decision. specified an intention must be notified to the erstwhile owner or his heir, but the information may not scope them due to the fact that there are situations erstwhile the “competent authority” can only print the applicable notice, and that is all. In addition, at the return of the property, the erstwhile owner or his heir must reimburse the damages received in connection with the expropriation, in addition to being validated. This may be a barrier condition for many people – and then relatives and friends of the rabbit enter.

Maybe the president won't sign this bill due to the fact that he won't want the Tusk government to implement the Shield of the East and have something to brag about in front of the public.

We're talking about a country where the uniform became a fetish and the most perfect immunity. In Poland there have been processes in fresh years that I consider irreversible. Anyone who has a small more strength than a kid at the minute is already defending something, due to the fact that politicians keep us, voters, in the state of permanent war, antagonize us and swindle us. Fearing society has become a major policy, and safety has become a scuffle by which organization or individual interests can be pursued.

Unlike the particulars written for circumstantial investments, specified as the road or the airport, this has no territorial or temporal constraints. He's not discriminating anyone.

Yes, it's a very equal bill. Anyone can get even. but possibly the owners of the garden, who are the first of equal...

If this bill passes, will we live in a peculiar state? A permanent state of emergency?

It depends on whether we can keep fear of Russia for many years and build political capital on it. If so, this emergency will become our fresh average state. Poland can even become a country under military rule.

**
Wojciech Siegień – ethnologist, psychologist, postgraduate of MISH University College, east Europe expert. He conducted field investigation in Belarus and Russia and since 2017 in Donbasa. He specializes in social and cultural militarisation issues. Along with Paulina Siegień runs a podcast On the Border and Eastern Block. Councillor of the commune of Dubiche Cerkiwne.

Kamil Syller - lawyer and activist. In 2015, he and his wife moved to Podlasie, specifically to the village of Verstok in the town of Dubicze Cerkiwe. There's a farm tourism for Dom Dom Dom. They got into a dispute about the Białowieża Forest and became involved. In 2021 the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border began, and as they lived 5 km from it, they became involved. Kamil helps refugees all the time, both in legal matters and in the forest.

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