Friday, April 03, 2009

Polish judicial system slammed as ‘corrupt’ and ‘ineffective’

Starting with a devastating report in RZECZPOSPOLITA on what Poles think about courts and prosecutors. The daily writes that research commissioned by the Ministry of Justice on the threshold of a planned reform of the justice system has shown that 44 percent of the population believe that the justice system is a failure. One in three Poles does not trust courts, judges and prosecutors. One in every two Poles says that the worst problem is corruption, followed by complicated procedures and bureaucracy. More than 70 percent of respondents say that sentences are unjust, courts are inefficient, biased and plagued by delays. However, Poles still trust legal advisers and the police, writes RZECZPOSPOLITA.

Another chilling report in DZIENNIK which writes that Poles top the list in the EU (and are third in the world) in the use of painkillers. Seventy percent of the population take over-the-counter analgesics because only 20 percent say that their pain problems were solved by a doctor. Several thousand land in hospital every year because of overdosing painkillers. DZIENNIK cites the case of a 46-year-old woman who bled to death because she had been taking five different kinds of remedies at once against her rheumatism. “People believe advertisements” writes the daily “and think that ‘intelligent’ headache pills only help headaches, so they take this for migraine, that for a cold and add something else for backache. They go to different doctors and don’t tell one about medicines prescribed by another; then they buy over-the-counter painkillers as well”.
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