Halina Niec Legal Aid Center


Katarzyna Przybyslawska


The Halina Nieć Legal Aid Center, (HNLAC) is a non-profit non-governmental organisation established in 2002 in Cracow, Poland and focusing on legal assistance, research, monitoring and advocacy. HNLAC is UNHCR’s implementing legal partner since 2003.
HNLAC’s mission is to protect human rights by providing free legal assistance to persons seeking international protection from persecution and human rights violations, including asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons.
HNLAC’s goal is also to monitor the adherence to standards of human rights in Poland and to work towards improving the standards of legal protection. Along these lines, the HNLAC undertakes legal interventions and advocacy activities, and pursues research and educational projects.
Since the beginning of war in Ukraine, HNLAC runs a dedicated legal assistance program for refugees from Ukraine while carrying out legal missions to migration detention facilities and refugee centers across Poland to provide legal assistance to all those in need of it.
Identification and legal assistance to stateless persons as well as advocating for better legal solutions for this group in Poland is one of HNLAC’s priority goals, along with promoting alternatives to detention, ending detention of children and vulnerable persons and ensuring full compliance with the non-refoulement principle at the Polish-Belarussian border.