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Professor Zbigniew Hołda was the Vice-President of the Board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and a member of the Helsinki Committee in Poland. He was a distinguished scholar, attorney and defender of human rights. He specialized in criminal law and criminal enforcement law and worked as a professor of law at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Before 1989 he was active member of the „Solidarity” movement in Lublin. During the state of Martial Lawe he was in internment.

As an attorney, Professor Zbigniew Hołda represented pro publico bono applicants in different precedent cases. He was representative of plaintiffs in the first Polish wrongful birth case. He represented applicants in the landmark Strasbourg case of Bączkowski and others v. Poland, concerning ban on gay pride in Warsaw in 2005. He was also involved in a precedential case of homophobic hate speech and managed to reach a settlement whereby right-wing politicians had to apologize for their homophobic statements. He also presented numerous applications to the Constitutional Court, most notably in the case of assistant judges. This case resulted in fundamental changes in the Polish judiciary.

Professor Zbigniew Hołda was actively involved in reforming Polish criminal law, as a member of different advisory bodies or codification committees. He was the most prominent commentator on human rights' issues in Poland and journalists highly appreciated cooperation with him.

For his activity Professor Zbigniew Hołda has received many prestigious awards, including: „The Golden Paragraph” - awarded by the legal daily „Gazeta Prawna”, Pro Bono Lawyer 2008 – awarded by the Law Clinics Foundation, and the  Tolerance Award – awarded by Polish LGBT organizations.

Professor Zbigniew Hołda was our great friend. He showed great empathy and tried to help every person who turned to him. He will be remembered by many for his excellent skills as an academic teacher, for his kindness, sense of humour, energy, passion and integrity in fighting for protection of human rights and counteracting abuse of public power.