Justyna Wydrzyńska was sentenced in March 2023 to eight months of community service after being found guilty of abetting an abortion.

A doula and one of the founders of the civil society organisation Abortion Dream Team, she was thought to be the first human rights activist in Europe to be prosecuted for providing abortion pills.

In 2020, she helped a pregnant woman, who said she had been suffering from domestic violence, to access abortion pills.

A year later, she was charged with “helping with an abortion” and “possession of medicines without authorisation for the purpose of introducing them into the market”.

Poland’s Court of Appeal found this week that Ms Wydrzyńska had not received a fair trial as the judge in the first instance court was not independently appointed.

Commenting, Esther Major, Amnesty International’s deputy director for research in Europe, said: “Today’s findings that the composition of the judges in the first instance court meant that Justyna Wydrzyńska did not have a fair trial gives the prosecutor’s office the opportunity to withdraw the charges against her.

“Justyna should have never been put on trial in the first place because what she did should never be a crime. By supporting a woman who asked for help, Justyna showed compassion. By defending the right to safe abortion in Poland, Justyna showed courage.

“The prosecutor’s office should now show the same.”

Poland has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe. Abortion is only legal when the health or the life of the pregnant person is at risk or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

Performing your own abortion or possession of abortion pills for a self-managed abortion is not a crime under Polish law, but any person or doctor who helps pregnant people with an abortion outside the two permitted grounds in the law may face up to three years in prison.