"Just Culture" or Fair Treatment in the procedure for reporting incidents in civil aviation was the theme of a workshop for prosecutors which ended on 22 May 2014. This was the second legal workshop on this subject held in Poland. The meeting was organized by the Civil Aviation Authority in cooperation with the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency.
On 21 and 22 May 2014 the workshop was attended by Polish prosecutors, including representatives of the General Prosecutor's Office and the Military Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, as well as representatives of law enforcement agencies from the Baltic countries. The meeting was also attended by specialists from Civil Aviation Authority and the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency.
At the special invitation of the President of the Civil Aviation Authority Mr. Piotr Ołowski one of the speakers was Mr. Roderick van Dam - Chairman of the Task Force EUROCONTROL for "Just Culture" and other leading foreign experts in this area, among others: Mr. Fred Bijslama, Chief Prosecutor at Schiphol airport near Amsterdam and Mr. Ian Weston, former Prosecutor from the United Kingdom.
Mr. Krzysztof Kapis - President of PANSA attended the opening of the workshop and highlighted the importance and significance of this initiative for the safety of air navigation.
The main objective of organizing the workshop was to present to the prosecutors the topic of "Just Culture" and its practical applications. The workshop participants had a unique opportunity not only to obtain further information regarding the approach to the concept of "Just Culture" in different countries, but also to listen to the experiences of law enforcement officials, from among others the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
President Ołowski when opening the workshop stressed that the knowledge and experience of prosecutors in combination with the knowledge of the concept of "Just Culture" acquired during the workshop will help in developing best practices in the management of safety in civil aviation in Poland. "The Civil Aviation Authority recognizes the need to improve knowledge about just culture within law enforcement bodies and recognizes its role in the management of safety, therefore, once again we organize in Poland a unique workshop for prosecutors," said President Ołowski.
Fair Treatment Culture ("Just Culture"), which is one of the main elements of the Safety Culture is an important element of safety management in civil aviation. This concept defines a certain level of trust in which people are encouraged to report incidents or safety-related information while identifying the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behavior . "Just Culture" is an important element of the reporting system providing information for the analysis of the risk/safety. The now created National Programme for Civil Aviation Safety and Safety Management Systems (SMS) are based on such information.
The importance of "Just culture" in the reporting system and legal aspects associated with it have for many years has been under interest to prestigious international organizations, including the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and EUROCONTROL.
