Regional Military Medical Commissions (Rejonowe Wojskowe Komisje Lekarskie — RWKL), together with the Regional Military Maritime Medical Commission and the Regional Military Aviation Medical Commission, issue decisions on all health-related matters of fundamental importance to a soldier’s career. However, those decisions are not always correct.
What matters do the Regional Commissions decide?
Regional Military Medical Commissions — both the eleven general commissions operating across Poland and the specialist Maritime and Aviation commissions — adjudicate on matters concerning the health of military personnel. Their remit extends not only to assessing fitness for service (both professional and active duty), but also to capacity for work, the degree of injury to health sustained as a result of an accident or an illness connected with the particular conditions of service, and related matters.
The decisions of the Commissions are frequently of decisive importance to soldiers — they can determine whether a soldier remains in service or not, and they directly affect the level of any disability pension or military retirement benefit to which the soldier may be entitled. It is therefore essential to ensure that such decisions reflect reality as accurately as possible.
Grounds for appeal
No one is infallible — and that includes the medical examiners sitting on the Commissions. As a result, decisions are not always entirely correct: on occasion, a person who is fit for service may be found unfit (or vice versa); in other cases, an erroneous assessment of capacity for work may be made, or an incorrect diagnosis recorded.
Since decisions issued by the Commissions are treated as administrative decisions within the meaning of the Code of Administrative Procedure (Kodeks postępowania administracyjnego), an appeal lies against them. The appeal is lodged via the Regional Commission and directed to the Central Military Medical Commission (Centralna Wojskowa Komisja Lekarska). The time limit for lodging an appeal is 14 days from the date on which the decision is served on its addressee.
The merits of an appeal
The decision-making carried out by Regional Military Medical Commissions sits at the intersection of law and medicine. Every decision should be analysed from both a purely medical perspective — that is, whether the conditions have been correctly identified, and their nature and severity properly assessed — and a legal perspective, in particular with regard to the correct classification of the diagnosed condition against Annex No. 1 to the relevant Regulation (which forms the basis for the assignment of a given medical category), the propriety of the evidentiary process, and the formal correctness of the decision itself. Crucially, the Central Military Medical Commission may set aside or vary a decision only where the errors identified have an actual bearing on its substance.
My experience
As a lawyer who has been assisting military personnel for many years, I have conducted several dozen appeal proceedings against decisions of Regional Military Medical Commissions. In my experience, the Central Military Medical Commission examines the circumstances thoroughly and comprehensively in light of the grounds raised in the appeal, frequently requires additional medical examinations, and not infrequently accepts the submissions set out in the appeal. This means that lodging an appeal — provided, of course, that the circumstances justify doing so — is always a worthwhile course of action, as it may result in a decision that more accurately reflects reality and is, in many cases, more favourable to the soldier.