Professor Wiktor Osiatyński died at the age of 72, after a long and severe illness. He was a lawyer, writer, journalist, academic lecturer and social activist - "Rzeczpospolita" reported late on Saturday on its website.
Wiktor Osiatyński studied law and sociology at the University of Warsaw and at the Polish Academy of Sciences. He obtained a Ph.D. in sociology. He then received a habilitation in law.
In the 1990s he was director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe in Chicago. In 1995 he became a professor at the Central European University in Budapest. He also collaborated with the University of Connecticut and the University of Siena. He lectured at universities including Antioch in Los Angeles, Columbia, Stanford, Harvard. He was a member of the Political Science Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences and participated in the preparation of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland in 1997.
Professor Osiatyński was also an active social activist. He was the initiator of the Precedent Case Program of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and became a member of its program council. He was engaged in spreading information about addictions, including alcoholism. He was an author of publications devoted to alcoholism and co-founder of the Committee on Alcoholism Education, one of the Stefan Batory Foundation\'s programs.
He was a laureate of many awards. He was also awarded with the Officer\'s Cross and the Commander\'s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. (PAP)
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