The Rule of Law Institute Foundation is a non-governmental organization created by a group of Polish and American lawyers connected to the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Lublin. The Institute was established on the 7th of December, 2001 with the aim of supporting initiatives for promoting of legal awareness in the society, continuing professional development of lawyers, promotion of the knowledge of the European law and of the idea of European integration, human rights protection initiatives and the reform of legal education.
Since its very beginnings the Institute has supported the ideas of free legal counseling and law school clinics. The Institute’s activities focus on three main areas of free legal counseling, trainings for lawyers and targeted legal education campaigns. At the same time the Institute takes part in comparative law research projects thanks to many cooperative relations with legal research organizations from other countries. Since 2004 the Institute has been providing legal representation and advice services to asylum seekers. In 2007 the Public Interest Law Resource Center and the Ewelina Milczanowska Lublin Center for Free Legal Counseling have been established as divisions of the Institute. In 2009 the Migration Library was founded as a part of the Regional Network of Immigrants Support in Lublin managed by the Institute.
Our mission is to promote the development of the rule of law in Poland, and in particular to support the ever fuller realization of the principle enshrined in the Article 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. Furthermore, through Poland’s historical experience and example we aim to support the democratic transformation process in transitional countries.
The rule of law is a cornerstone of every society based on respect for the individual, protection of human rights, freedom and democracy. Our Institute seeks to strengthen the rule of law through organizing trainings, carrying out legal awareness campaigns, and through development and implementation of other innovative programs. To that purpose we undertake active partnerships with professional lawyer associations, other non-governmental organizations, relevant governmental and self-governmental bodies and all other institutions within the scope of our interest which share our goals.
Delaine R. Swenson is a Professor of Law at KUL and Director and founder of the Center for Advancing Legal Skills. He is one of the founders of the Rule of Law Institute. Professor Swenson is a graduate of Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington where he received a double degree in History/Political Science and Theatre Arts. Professor Swenson received his Juris Doctorate (J.D.) degree from the National Law Center of George Washington University in Washington D.C.For over 10 years worked as a trial attorney in the United States specializing in taking criminal and civil cases to court, with an emphasis on jury trials. In 1994 was recognized as the outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year for the State of Washington. From 1997-99 worked as the Rule of Law/Criminal Law Liaison for the American Bar Association’s Central Europe and Eurasia Law Initiative (CEELI) legal reform program in Poland. As liaison he worked closely with Iustitia, the Polish Judges Association, the Ministry of Justice and lawyers groups on legal reform and judicial training and was a founder of Catholic University’s Center for American Law. From 1999 to 2002 Professor Swenson managed CEELI’s legal reform programs in the five Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Krygzystan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. As Regional Director he was administrative and programmatic manager of a multi-million dollar legal reform assistance program with 10 offices in five countries. In 2002 Professor Swenson served as a Senior Scholar with the United States Fulbright Program in Poland and since then has served as a Professor at KUL’s Chair of American and Comparative Law. He is a founder and Council Member of the Rule of Law Institute Foundation. Professor Swenson continues to work on legal reform projects, and has consulted on projects for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the United Nations, USAID and the State Department. He is presently involved as an expert and trainer in a State Department funded Model Courthouse project run by Indiana University in China. Professor Swenson has provided training on adult education methods, trial advocacy, human rights, court and judicial reform in the United States, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union.
Professor of Law at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and the Director and Founder of the Center for the Advancement of Legal Skills. He graduated from Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, where he majored in History/Political Science and Theater Studies. He received his Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from the National Law Center at George Washington University. He practiced law in the United States for over 10 years, specializing in civil and criminal cases. In 1994, he was named Young Lawyer of the Year in Washington State.
A graduate of the 4th High School Tadeusz Kościuszko in Toruń. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. In 1988 he obtained a doctoral degree from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Nicolaus Copernicus University. In 1996 he obtained his habilitation at the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw. He was the Head of the Department of History and Theory of State and Law at the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the Catholic University of Lublin. He was also the head of the Center for American Law at the Catholic University of Lublin formed jointly with the Chicago-Kent College of Law. In the years 2001–2005 he was the head of the Section of General Law Studies at the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Lublin. He is a member of the Collections of the Scientific Society in Toruń and the Learned Society of the Catholic University of Lublin. He is also a member of the Council of the Foundation of the Home Army Pomorze Archives in Torun and a member of the American Society for Legal History and Supreme Court Historical Society in the USA. He is the vice-chairman of the Editorial Board of the historical journal “Modern Times”.
Marzena Rzeszot is a graduate of the Faculty of Law of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, where she is currently a candidate in the PhD program. She has served as an assistant to the Center for American Law at KUL and is the Program Director for the Center for Advancing Legal Skills.
She has previously worked as a project coordinator for the Rule of Law Institute Foundation and as a summer associate in the Philadelphia law firm of Jennings and Associates. She has been involved as a trainer assisting in trainings for judges, lawyers and law students in Lublin, Warsaw and Bialystok.
Professor Warner joined the Chicago-Kent faculty in 1990. Prior to that, he was an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania. He teaches Contracts, Remedies, Jurisprudence, Internet Law, and E-Commerce Law and has published several articles and books on philosophical and legal topics.
Professor Warner was named a Norman and Edna Freehling Scholar in 2002 and is the faculty director of Chicago-Kent’s Center for Law and Computers. He is the director of Chicago-Kent\’s Project Poland (www.kentlaw.edu/poland) and visiting foreign professor at University of Gdańsk, Poland, where he is director of the School of American Law. He is also director of the School of American Law at the University of Wrocław, Poland. From 1994 to 1996, he was president of InterActive Computer Tutorials, a software company, and from 1998 to 2000, he was director of Building Businesses on the Web, an Illinois Institute of Technology executive education program concerning e-commerce.
Professor Warner’s research concerns the regulation of business competition on the Internet and Internet security as well as the nature of human rights and their grounding in personal freedom. He has lectured on Internet security at the second United Nations Economic Commission for Europe workshop, „E-Regulations: E-Security and Knowledge Economy,” in Geneva, Switzerland, and, at the invitation of the FBI, on global cybercrime before the Chicago Crime Commission. He was the principal investigator for „Using Education to Combat White Collar Crime,” a U.S. State Department grant devoted to combating money laundering in Ukraine from 2000 to 2006. He is currently a member of the U.S. Secret Service’s Electronic and Financial Crimes Taskforce.
Professor Warner earned his J.D. from the University of Southern California, where he served on the Southern California Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, and he received his B.A. (with distinction and Phi Beta Kappa) in English from Stanford University.
A graduate of Law from the Catholic University of Lublin and the American Law Program from the Center for American Law Chicago-Kent College of Law. He also completed the European Local Government Studies organized by the KUL Development Foundation in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. In 2015 he graduated from post-graduate studies in the field of evidence law. He runs a law firm in Poznań that deals with criminal and commercial law. Since 2016, he is a member of the Wielkopolska Bar Association in Poznań.
Arkadiusz Siechowicz is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and the American Law Program on the Center for American Law/ Chicago-Kent College of Law. Nowadays, he is an entrepreneur and co-owner of the Consulting and Training Company – Westhill Consulting. He has devoted his carrier to management and sales competencies development among Polish managers. He is a strategic advisor of ministers and companies’ managers.
Szymon Milczanowski is an experienced consultant, interim manager and business analyst. Szymon is a respected crisis management specialist, and an advisor in many processes of restructuring, change management and the creation and implementation of new businesses, marketing and communication strategies.
His legal education (graduate of the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Lublin) means that he is often recommended by clients and law firms to build media coverage in business and legal disputes.
Dr Tomasz Sieniow is a graduate of the Catholic University of Lublin (MA in Law -1997) and Chicago-Kent College of Law – Illinois Institute of Technology (Master of Laws in International and Comparative Law – 2000). He obtained the PhD degree in 2004 on the basis of a doctoral dissertation entitled “Patent exhaustion in a comparative perspective “, written under the supervision of prof. dr hab. Ryszard Skubisz. He completed research internships at universities in Belgium, the United Kingdom and the USA. He is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Lublin, where he teaches European Union and migration law. His achievements include several dozen publications in the field of migration law, European Union and IP law. He serves as a coordinator of the Refugee Legal Clinic of the Catholic University of Lublin. Since 2002, he has been the president of the board of the Rule of Law Institute, where he was responsible for a number of projects financed, among others, by the EU, UNHCR, UNDP, USAID, EEA, the Batory Foundation and the Polish-American Freedom Foundation. In his practice, he represents foreigners in deportation and asylum proceedings. He conducts research on the implementation of European law on migration by Poland. He is a member of the Commission for Migrants at the Polish Ombudsman Office and a Consultor of the Migration Council at the Polish Bishops’ Conference. Since 2009, he has been coordinating the work of the Lublin Regional Immigrants’ Support Network.
Paweł Wojtasik in years 2002-2007 studied Law at Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), which he graduated with the highest honours. He wrote his MA thesis “Działanie w obronie społecznie uzasadnionego interesu jako okoliczność uchylająca bezprawność naruszenia dóbr osobistych” under supervision of Dr J. Widło. Since 2007 he is Ph.D. Candidate in the Department European Union Law at the John Paul II Catholic Univeristy of Lublin, where he is also teaching EU Law.
He has been a volunteer then lawyer and the Coordinator of the Lublin Legal Aid Center since 2006.
In 2007 he was an Assistant in the program "Education and legal assistance for people at risk of marginalization in the Lublin region", financed by the Civic Initiatives Fund and Coordinator of the project "Lublin Center for Free Legal Advice", financed by the European Union. From January to October 2008 he was the Coordinator of the project "Lublin Center for Free Legal Advice II". In turn, from July 2008 to April 2009 he coordinated the project "Lublin Center for Free Legal Advice", financed by the Institute of Public Affairs from the funds of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation.
Since 2009 he sereves as an Executive Director of the Foundation. In December 2009 he has been appointed by the Foundation Council to the Board of the Rule of Law Institute.
Graduate of the Faculty of Law at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (MA in Administration: 2003 and MA in Law: 2004), graduate of the School of American Law – a joint project of Chicago-Kent College of Law and at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. He participated in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition twice, winning second place in the national stage with the team.
In 2002 and 2003 he worked as a legal assistant for the Rule of Law Institute. In 2004 he began working at the Bank PEKAO as an account manager in the VIP sector and after that cooperating with entities engaged in business in Ukraine within Ukraine Desk. From 2006 till 2014 he worked as a specialist managing the Bank’s receivables within the Corporate Loan Workout Department. Since December 2009 he has served as a Board Member of the Rule of Law Institute.
She graduated from the Law at the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. From 2012 till 2014, she completed legal training at the Bar Association of Attorneys-at-Law in Lublin which ended in a professional examination with a positive result. Since 2008, she has been cooperating with the Rule of Law Institute Foundation, initially, through participation in the program of legal education for high school students “Street Law” and through law classes in the section of refugee law and then, working as a lawyer and coordinator of the Refugee Program.
Attorney-at-law at Lublin Bar Association of Attorneys-At-Law. Graduate of Bachelor’s and Master’s studies in European Studies and Law at the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of KUL. Associated with the Foundation since 2016. From February 2017, she participated in the refugee law clinic at the University Legal Clinic of KUL (in the 2018-2019 semester, she was the Secretary of the Section). In the Foundation, she was employed as an Integration Advisor and as a Legalization Lawyer. Currently, she provides legal advice to Ukrainian war refugees and Polish citizens at the Ewelina Milczanowska Free Legal Advice Center in Lublin. Her interests include bioethics law, public and private international law, and civil law.
Absolwent Uniwersytetu Marii Curie–Skłodowskiej w Lublinie. W 2010 r. ukończył licencjat z ekonomii na specjalności przedsiębiorstwo w gospodarce rynkowej. Od 2012 r. magister finansów i rachunkowości. Współpracę z Fundacją rozpoczął w 2011 r. jako wolontariusz działu finansowego. Obecnie pracuje jako specjalista ds. obsługi finansowej i kadrowej w Instytucie.
A graduate of the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. He obtained his master’s degree based on a thesis in the field of religious law. He began cooperation with the Foundation in 2007 as a volunteer. Since January 2010, he was employed as a financial assistant, and since October 2010 as Deputy Director for Financial Affairs. He has also worked as a lawyer and project coordinator.
Graduate of Slavic Philology and European Studies at the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II. In 2011, he completed a one-month internship at the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Poland in Warsaw. He has been cooperating with the Institute since 2013 and is responsible for providing legalization and integration assistance to migrants and war refugees from Ukraine. He speaks fluently in English, Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish.
Graduate of European Studies at the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II. Bachelor’s degree in English Philology from Ternopil National Pedagogical University named after Volodymyr Hnatiuk at the Department of Foreign Languages (Ukraine). Worked as an English teacher. Associated with the Institute since 2015, initially as a volunteer. Currently works in a position related to providing assistance to migrants. Interests: literature, culture, religion, and foreign languages.
A graduate of Master’s studies in Economics at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II. Associated with the Foundation since 2018, initially as a volunteer and intern. Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian and Polish. Provides integration assistance to migrants and war refugees from Ukraine. Interests: migration law, skiing, floristry.
Doctor of Law, Associate Professor at the Department of Civil Procedure at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. An advocate working at the Foundation through the Cash for Work program that is coordinated by the Polish Centre for International Aid. With knowledge of both Ukrainian and Polish law, he can provide legal advice to Ukrainian citizens on matters not only related to Polish law but also to Ukrainian law. Interests: sports law, speedway.
Graduate of Master’s degree in European Union Law and Bachelor’s degree in European Studies from the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Currently a fourth-year law student at WPPKiA KUL. Associated with the Foundation since 2021, providing legal assistance to refugees. Interests: European Union law, sports.
A graduate of the Master’s degree program in European Union Law and the Bachelor’s degree program in European Studies at the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Ukrainian Philology and Journalism from Ivan Ohienko National University (Ukraine). Associated with the Institute since 2015. Currently working in a position related to providing assistance to migrants and is responsible for communication activities. Interests include foreign languages and volleyball.
Master’s degree graduate in Sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Associated with the Institute since 2019 as an intern and volunteer. Currently working in a position related to providing assistance to migrants
Graduate of the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. He began his cooperation with the Foundation in March 2022 by volunteering to help people fleeing the war in Ukraine. He currently provides legal advice on the detention of foreigners and international protection.
Graduate of Master's studies in Law at the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the Catholic University of Lublin. Associated with the Institute since 2022. Currently employed as a Lawyer, she provides legal assistance to migrants and refugees. In her free time, she is passionate about traveling and mountain hiking.
Attorney-at-law. A graduate of the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) at the Faculty of Law, Canon Law, and Administration, with a Master’s degree in Law. The founder of panprawniczy.pl, a legal portal, and an author of scientific publications in the field of tax law and business law.Socially involved in the legislative work related to regulating the professions of speech therapists and dietitians. At present, in addition to running his own Law Firm and preparing a PhD thesis, he provides assistance to refugees, including Ukrainian citizens, particularly in the cases of extradition and seeking compensation for arbitrary detention. Moreover, he volunteers to provide legal advice to Polish citizens at the Ewelina Milczanowska Lublin Free Legal Advice Center.
Graduate of Master's studies in Management at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. He graduated with a very good result with distinction. Associated with the Institute since 2023. Currently works in a position related to providing assistance to migrants. Speaks fluent Polish, Ukrainian and Russian.
Attorney-at-law, Graduate of the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the Catholic University of Lublin John Paul II. Since 2009, participant of the Refugee Section of the University Legal Clinic at KUL, serving as secretary of the section in the academic year 2010/2011. Has been cooperating with the Foundation as a volunteer since 2009. As a lawyer, she provides legal advice to migrants and Polish citizens within the framework of the Lublin Free Legal Advice Center named after Ewelina Milczanowska.
Graduate of the Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Third-year attorney trainee. While still studying, he completed two internships at the Foundation. He gained professional experience working both in individual law firms and in a large company. He currently provides legal advice on the detention of foreigners and international protection. Privately, he is interested in contemporary history.
Absolwent studiów licencjackich na kierunku Europeistyka na Wydziale Prawa, Prawa Kanonicznego i Administracji KUL. Student stosunków międzynarodowych drugiego stopnia na Wydziale Nauk Społecznych KUL. Z Instytutem związany od 2023 roku. Obecnie pełni funkcje w dziale finansowym i kadr. Zainteresowania to historia i języki obce.
Sędzia Sądu Najwyższego w stanie spoczynku Maria Teresa Romer