The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area 25 This trend is alarming and even surprising when we take into account the fact that 95 per cent of Poles claim to be Catholic. Because of the stance of Pope John Paul II, the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the issue of capital punishment has greatly changed. In his encyclical Evangelium vitae of 1995, the Pope implicitly expressed his support for abolition by stating that the death penalty should be extremely limited or even abolished since there were other measures to protect society from offenders. In the following years, the Pope appealed for abolition and declared that capital punishment was contrary to human dignity. The facts presented in this paper show that, although Polish legislation currently meets international standards, public attitudes and the aspirations of politicians indicate that the possibility of the reintroduction of the death penalty in Poland is realistic and should not be disregarded. Opponents of capital punishment have been making efforts to prevent this from happening. The draft law proposed by Law and Justice has drawn protests from a great number of NGOs, such as Amnesty International and the Helsinki Committee in Poland, which stated: “The death penalty ruins the faith in the absolute, inalienable value of human life. It’s this faith that has to be propagated and upheld, because it is the basis for public morals. That is why we oppose the restitution of the death penalty in Poland, as well as the instrumental treatment of this problem by politicians.” The possible consequences of reestablishing the death penalty could reach far beyond those mentioned above. Today, when the majority of the member states of the Council of Europe, the European Union, and the OSCE are aiming, through the provisions of domestic law and related policy, to abolish the death penalty under all circumstances, Poland, by reintroducing the death penalty, would be taking a step backwards in the process of becoming a democratic, modern country that respects fundamental human rights and the universal and regional standards that uphold those rights. Irrevocable harm could also be done to Poland’s reputation and international relations, which are based on mutual confidence and common goals. Selected bibliography Bagan-Kurluta, K. and G.B. Szczygieł, “Zobowiązania międzynarodowe Polski a koncepcja przywrócenia kary śmierci”, Państwo i Prawo 2005 No. 1, pp. 3-16. Marek, A., Prawo karne (Warsaw, Beck, 2006). Mitera, M. and Z. Zubik, Kara śmierci w świetle doświadczeń współczesnych systemów prawnych (Warsaw, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, 1998).