The Regional Court in Warsaw has received nearly 3,500 complaints by former communist secret service and other officials after a January 1 law reduced their pensions significantly.

Many more complaints are on their way, writes Rzeczpospolita.

Under the law - part of Poland’s so-called “de-communisation” - the Ministry of Interior receives the appeals and then passes them on to the courts. Up to 15,000 appeals are pending and will be with the courts within two weeks.

The Constitutional Court, when reviewing the law, found that it was unconstitutional to reduce pensions of eight top communists such as General Jaruzelski by up to half. The court ruled that the portion of the pensions earned during the martial law in the 1980s could be cut but the rest could not. For the rest of the 40,000 officials the court ruled that pensions could be reduced, however. (pg)