Reframing LGBT rights advocacy in the context of the rule of law backsliding. The case of Poland

Adopting the methods of institutional analysis and case law analysis, the paper answers how specific elements of rule of law backsliding impact advocacy for minorities’ rights’recognition. The phenomenon is analysed in the case of Poland, a state that since 2015 hasbeen experiencing directed erosion on rule of law standards. Between 2018 and 2020,governmentalleaders in Poland targeted lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)people in the context of electoral campaigns. The paper discusses long-term legal, political,and social factors contributing to creating an environment where such anti-LGBTcampaigns are possible. It further demonstrates that specific elements of rule of law backsliding,such as politically subordinating the Constitutional Tribunal and the office of theProsecutor General, enable authorities to apply discriminatory legal instruments to limitthe targeted minority’s rights and also make resistance to it with legal means morecomplex. Against this backdrop, the paper argues that human rights defenders’ immediateresponses—private civil lawsuits, artistic projects, and monitoring of discriminatoryactionsof the authorities—were key for drawing domestic and international attention toanti-LGBTcampaigns, which later led to the European Union’s institutions concrete actionsand an independent Commissioner for Human Rights’ legal actions.