The Institute for Social Research and Education Foundation (IBIES), together with partners – the Polish Association for Security (PAS) and Shooting Adventure – conducted an educational workshop in Olsztyn dedicated to the legal and practical aspects of necessary defense.
Workshop Content
The workshop, which took place on October 4, 2025, in Olsztyn, was led by Jarosław Hebda – PhD in Security Studies, court-appointed expert, and specialist in legal regulations concerning necessary defense. During the sessions, participants had the opportunity to explore the complex issues of legal boundaries of defensive actions, with particular emphasis on situations involving the use of direct coercion measures.
The workshop program included a detailed discussion of the sequence of actions preceding the potential use of firearms – from identification and warnings, through alerts, to warning shots. Participants analyzed how to assess the proportionality of defensive measures in relation to the nature of the threat and how to interpret regulations governing defensive situations in the Polish legal system.
A significant part of the sessions was devoted to discussing cases in which defensive actions may be considered as exceeding permissible legal boundaries – both in the context of ordinary and privileged exceedance of necessary defense limits.
Summary
The implementation of the workshop aligns with IBIES’s mission to raise public awareness in areas critical to citizen security. The knowledge provided enables participants to make informed and responsible decisions in crisis situations, with a full understanding of the legal consequences of their actions. The event also demonstrated the value of collaboration between organisations with different operational profiles in delivering complex educational projects.
