Why Now? Poland’s 2020 Law on Compensation for Victims of Deportations to the Soviet Union

In 2020, the Polish government passed the Law on Deportees to supplement the 1991 Law on Veterans. Why was the 2020 law passed almost three decades after the 1991 law? Why the delay and, conversely, what kept it on the political agenda for so long? Finally, what factors contributed to its eventual passage? To address this question, this paper provides descriptive legislative analysis drawing on primary and secondary sources. Next, thematic qualitative textual analysis is used to analyze key sources such as the 2020 law, the 2021 amendment, earlier drafts of bills proposed in 2009 and 2013, transcripts of the surrounding parliamentary debates, legal opinions and analyses, voting records, and other materials from the Archives of the Sejm. This paper concludes that the timing of the law was influenced by domestic and international factors that can be classified as “brakes” and “accelerators that either delayed or facilitated the passage of the law. “Brakes” include factors such as financial constraints, uncooperative Russian foreign policy, and low prioritization relative to other legislative projects. “Accelerators” include a pre-existing legal framework in Poland, a supportive policy framework in Germany and the EU, a sense of social solidarity leading to broad support for the law across the political spectrum, incremental advances toward slow but steady progress, sustained activism of civil society organizations, and generational turnover triggering a sense of urgency.