Petition regarding Amendment 1 to PNR Act

Dear Aviation Market Players,

As you are probably aware, Polish Parliament is already processing the Act that is about to overwhelm airlines and other aviation players that had problems in implementation of Polish PNR Act and failed to report PNR data from 2018 for any reason whatsoever. The so called Amendment 1 to PNR Act is about to  extend the punishment deadlines for the PNR infringements from 3 to 5 years . The Act will also  extend the deadlines for the past infringements , unless there already time barred. The Act also allows the group unlimited number of infringements into one procedure (e.g. 1 case for hundreds of fights without any legal limitations).

Here you may learn more about the  Draft Bill of the Amendment 1 to PNR Act .

The Border Guard has calculated that the amount of expected  penalties will exceed 2 billion of Polish Złoty  and will be imposed towards approx.  500 companies worldwide .

Aviation Team of our Law Firm  encourages all market player to join the petition.

Key Facts about the Petition

• Who may sign the petition ?  There are no restrictions as who may sign the petition, however aviation industry market players, and especially airlines are particularly requested to sign the petition.
• To whom the petition is addressed ?  The petition is addressed to Polish Prime Minster, Minister of Internal Affairs, Chairman of Sejm, Chairman of Senate, Chairman of relevant legislative commission.
• When the petition will be sent ?  We are planning to send the petition prior to first hearing of Polish Parliament in 2020, i.e. around 10 January 2022.
• What data will be disclosed to to the addressees ?  We will only disclose the name of the companies

Content of the petition

Content of the petition seen below:

PETITION

We, the undersigned, representatives of the aviation industry, express our  deep concern  regarding the content and hasty manner of proceeding with the government’s  bill amending the Act on the Processing of Passenger Name Records  (Print 1891) (the ” Draft “).  

We submit an petition to discontinue the legislative procedure for the above-mentioned the Draft act for the following reasons:

• The Draft does not meet the assumed objective  of “relieving the aviation industry, which is in a very difficult financial situation due to the persistent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the policy of restrictions adopted around the world for this reason”;
• The Draft  will have exactly the opposite effects to the assumed ones – i.e. it  will additionally plunge the aviation industry  – as it provides for the imposition of  fines in the amount of PLN 2.2 billion on 448 air carriers ;
• The Draft violates the principle of non-retroactivity , as it  extends the limitation period  for imposing penalties from 3 to 5 years  in relation to  past infringements ;
• The Draft grossly violates the right to a fair trial , shifting the burden of command to air carriers, allowing the authority to unlimitedly group violations within one proceeding (e.g. several thousand violations within one case – which will prevent the party from defending fairly). The proceedings already pending in relation to one flight usually concern data concerning hundreds of people – which is still a considerable administrative burden. Grouping flights within one case will lead to the handling of data of hundreds of thousands of people within one proceeding;  
• The Draft discourages air carriers (especially smaller ones) from performing air operations to and from Poland in the future;
• The Draft ignores two key mitigating circumstances  that had an impact on the commitment of PNR violations by air carriers:
  • Huge technical difficulties in simultaneously connecting to more than 20 different PNR data reporting systems (including a limited number of entities capable of performing this task),
  • Impact of the SARS-CoV pandemic.
• For the above reasons – as the project promoter also notice on page 3 of OCR –  20 EU country did not impose any penalties, and there is no data regarding penalties for 4 further countries. Penalties for PNR violations were imposed only by Lithuania (for 2 carriers, EUR 5,230 each) and Romania (for 1 carrier, EUR 80,000);
• The Draft does not provide for any vacatio legis;
• The Draft does not provide for public consultations  despite the scale of the burden it imposes on air carriers and the introduction of solutions that do not meet IATA’s demands to relieve the aviation industry due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the opinion of the undersigned, the draft act violates the fundamental rights of entrepreneurs (lex retro non agit) and aims to threaten the aviation industry, or at least discourage investment in the aviation industry in Poland.  

In connection with the above, we request that work on the above-mentioned Draft are discontinued and the legislative efforts are channeled to dialogue with aviation industry to ensure that the potential amendment of PNR regulation in Poland meets the needs of the respective Directive while at the same time resources are used for safety and security purposes.