The Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw has overturned the decision to transfer Natallia Padleuskaya to Lithuania under the Dublin procedure, the initiative Partyzanka reported. The appeal submitted to the court was prepared by the initiative’s founder, Anna Matieuskaya.
Representatives of Partyzanka thanked MEP Małgorzata Gosiewska for her support and assistance, the law firm Parchimowicz i Kwaśniewski for promptly providing a lawyer who represented Padleuskaya in court, and more than 20 Belarusians who came to show their solidarity.
The initiative’s representatives said they will continue monitoring the implementation of the court’s decision.
“This is yet another legal quest to bring Natallia back home — to her family in Poland,” they said.
On October 22, two days before the hearing, Polish Border Guard officers arrived at Padleuskaya’s residence near Wrocław and detained her for transfer to Lithuania under the Dublin Regulation. She was not warned in advance and had no time to collect her belongings.
Padleuskaya, 60, was sentenced in May 2022 to one year in prison for insulting Aleksandr Lukashenka. After her release, she left Belarus for Poland on a Lithuanian visa to join her relatives and applied for international protection in September 2024. Her application was twice denied, and authorities had planned to transfer her case to Lithuania under the Dublin Regulation.
In June, Padleuskaya appealed the denials and requested that her case be heard in Poland. She also asked the Warsaw court to suspend the enforcement of earlier decisions in her case. The court hearing took place today in Warsaw.