Europe's top human rights court has ruled that Poland violated the rights of a politician who lost his post due to a law requiring officials to declare links with the communist-era security service.
The European Court of Human Rights Tuesday ruled that Tadeusz Matyjek had insufficient access to his classified files, which hampered his defense before Polish courts.
The inability to prove that he was not a collaborator of the notorious security police forced Matyjek to step down from parliament in 2000.
Matyjek claimed that all his contacts with communist-era security service members were private and did not constitute collaboration.
The Warsaw Court of Appeal in 2003 rejected Matyjek's efforts to prove his innocence.
The Human Rights Court determined that Poland placed an unrealistic burden on the politician to defend himself.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters.
