flash news: #whistleblowing
On 25 April 2024, following a complaint from the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Poland has failed to fulfil its obligation to implement the EU’s Whistleblower Protection Directive.
EU Member States were given time to 17 December 2021 to adopt the necessary national regulations. According to the CJEU, “the wide scope of the regulations under the mentioned directive does not justify the lengthening time being spent on legislative work”. The CJEU also did not accept the difficulties that Poland raised in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic or the reception of war refugees from Ukraine.
On 17 April 2024, a draft law on the protection of whistleblowers was submitted to Parliament, which aims to implement the European Parliament and Council (EU) Directive 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019.
We wrote about the most important changes for employers with respect to the previous draft here and the text of the draft can be reviewed here.
The law is generally expected to enter into force three months after its announcement.
On 28 March 2024, another bill (dated 27 March 2024) was published on the website of the Governmental Legislation Centre, which aims to implement Directive 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) of 23 October 2019 on the protection of whistleblowers under EU law. On 2 April 2024, the Council of Ministers adopted the draft, so it is expected to soon be debated by parliament.
The most important changes for employers with respect to the previous draft:
- Subject of violations. Human trafficking has been removed from the list of areas in which whistleblowers may report violations. It has also been clarified that only violations of constitutional human and civil liberties and rights in an individual's relations with public authorities can be reported.
On 6 March 2024, another draft bill (dated 26 February 2024) was published on the website of the Governmental Legislation Centre, which aims to implement Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of whistleblowers.
The most important changes for employers compared to the previous draft:
- Subject of violations: The catalogue of areas whose violations may be the subject of whistleblower reports has been expanded. The new areas are: human and civil liberties and rights, corruption, human trafficking, and labour law – as a result, whistleblower reports will be able to concern, inter alia, mobbing, discrimination, correct accounting of working time or observance of health and safety rules.
On 11 January, another bill was published on the Government Legislation Centre’s website. It is intended to implement Directive 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (Whistleblowing Directive).
On 7 July 2022, the third version of the bill on the protection of whistleblowers (bill number: UC 101) was published on the Government Legislation Centre’s website. The submitted bill includes several changes compared with the bill published on 12 April 2022.