Permissibility of Shooting Down a Civilian Aircraft Used as a Weapon to Perform a Terrorist Aerial Attack within the Jurisprudence of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal

Abstract

Following an increasing global terrorist threat in the beginning of 2000s, in 2004 a provision was added to the Polish law which allowed to shoot down a civilian aircraft with passengers and crew on board if being used for illegal activities, namely for carrying out a terrorist attack from the air (an aircraft of a RENEGADE status). In 2007 the Constitutional Tribunal was requested
to rule the provision unconstitutional for being inconsistent among others with the principles of correct (decent) legislation, legal protection of human life and protection of human dignity. In its judgment dated September 30, 2008, the Constitutional Tribunal declared that the provision authorizing shooting down a civilian airliner was inconsistent with the Constitution. Thus, it annulled the binding force of the provision. The Tribunal recognized human life and dignity as the values constituting the foundation of European
civilization and determining the semantic content of the central concept of humanism in our culture (law being no exclusion)