The paper aims to show that the Polish Environmental Law is an act that imposes
public imposts to protect Poland’s natural environment. This act features certain
specific qualities and legal solutions. The author has formulated a claim that some
of the provisions concerning the fees for the use of the natural environment and
the emissions surcharge breach the constitutional standards of exclusivity of an
impost act, of the right to predictable taxation, decent legislation, and a democratic
state of law.

The article deals with the practice of invoking philosophers in the reasons for judgments of the Polish courts. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the case law of the common courts, administrative courts, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Tribunal allowed for the formulation of several main conclusions. First, although judgments containing references to philosophers constitute only a small fraction of all the case law, at the same time, when measured in absolute numbers, cases of quoting philosophers are not marginal. Second, in the two last decades there has been a clear intensification in the use of philosophical references in judgments. Third, references to philosophers exercise a number of different functions falling within the clarification and persuasive purposes of grounds of judgments. Fourth, there is no one attitude among courts and the parties towards the presence of philosophical arguments in the judicial process. The titular issue is not the further stage of the legal scholarship’s discourse on “judges as philosophers” in the likeness of Dworkin’s “Judge Hercules”. The practice of referring to philosophers by the courts is primarily an issue of the style of reasons for judgment and the role of non-legal sources in the rationalisation of judicial decisions – and not so much in the making of them. In the author’s view, the case law study reveals the utilitarian potential of philosophy for judicial argumentation.

The paper tries to conceptualize the social and structural change that self-governments underwent during systemic transformation in Poland. First, the situation of professional self-governments before the systemic transformation is discussed, including their liquidation at the onset of communist rule in Poland as well as the beginnings of their revival at the end of it, which was described as the first wave of development of professional self-governments. Both the reasons for liquidation, as well as revival of professional-self-governments are described. After this we discuss the second wave of this development, covering the first years after the fall of communism up to the adoption of the Polish Constitution of 1997, which regulated the status of professional self-government in the “social constitution”. Next we analyse the third wave of development of professional self-governments, which lasted until 2001 and was a portent of the conflict discussed at the end of the article between two ways of understanding what professional self-governments are and what role they should play (one focused on social constitution and other on efficiency). It is argued that from 2001 onwards professional self-governments have been treated more like a tool of effective governance (and very often – as something that hinders this governance) rather than an expression of civic society.

100 years of constitutionalism of two neighbouring European states – Czechoslovakia, later becoming the Czech Republic, and Poland – encourage a reflection on the paths of development of their respective constitutions, on the historical stages and successive political transformations, not just in the context of individual constitutionalisms of each of those states but with an emphasis on the similarities and differences in this domain. And this is what this study focuses on. Starting from the common fate of rebirth of both states after WWI through the inter-war efforts to establish democratic constitutional systems and the obstacles found on the way, followed by the post-WWII period of real socialism ending with the era of transformations and stabilisation as democratic states of law. The text explores all the similarities found in both general aspects – like the references to the European tradition of parliamentary governance – and in certain specific solutions – like the differences in the concept of the two-chamber parliament. But there are also situations occurring in only one of the states, e.g. the federalisation of Czechoslovakia, the emergence of two separate states of the Czechs and Slovaks, or the differences in the course and sequence of events of democratic transformations in each of the states in the 1980s (martial law in Poland and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia), which brings us to the conclusion that despite all the possible differences, the two constitutional systems have actually been very similar to each other.

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the institutions responsible for the election, promotions and nominations of judges in France, Germany and Poland. At the very eginning – in the introduction – the genesis of institutions which are equivalents of the National Council of the Judiciary was presented, starting from the philosophical basis for the idea of the independence of courts and judges, through international regulations to the constitutions of individual states. The main part was divided into 3 sections: a brief description of the judiciary, the composition of the institution responsible for the election of judges and the manner of appointing its members, and the competence of the council and the manner of appointing judges. Each of these issues was divided by the selected countries, thanks to which it will be possible to get a clear picture of how these institutions work in individual countries. As a summary, conclusions about how the principle of judiciary independence is met in selected countries, and whether meeting this principle depends exclusively on legal framework.

The paper indicates the most important arguments raised by the participants in the dispute concerning the possibility of control by the administrative courts of decisions of the President of the Republic of Poland on the refusal to appoint a judge and an attempt to make a substantive evaluation of them. In my opinion, the refusal to appoint a judge, as well as refusal to accept the judge’s position under the amended Act on the Supreme Court (SC) should be strictly exceptional and in principle be justified at the constitutional level, which should be seen as the duty of the President to ensure compliance with the Constitution. Both of these resolutions should contain the motives of the President, which would make this act, with all its arbitrariness, more transparent. This is important not only from the point of view of the person concerned, but this also has an important social dimension. The public has the right to know, not only which candidates, who met the requirements for the appointment as a judge and were recommended by the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland (NCJ), were not appointed by the President, but also what reasons were at the heart of such a decision of the Head of State.

The article discusses the issue of the possibility of regulating matters concerning higher education and its institutions in executive and internal acts. It presents the acceptable limits of delegating matters relating to higher education to regulations, as well as internal acts of higher education institutions. These limits are described taking into account the principle of autonomy of higher education institutions, as well as the rules on the creation of law, in particular the rules for issuing regulations. It was also pointed out that the incorrect division of matter between act of parliament (statute) and a regulation violates constitutional rules of law creation. It is also contrary to the protection of entities’ trust in the state and law and the principle of division and balance of power. Faulty formation of the higher education system is not good to the quality of education and conducting scientific research. It hinders the implementation of the freedom of science.

The article aims to help realize that to understand the changes which take place in space policy and space law, it is necessary to abandon the old course of thought and think the other way. The author exposes thesis that force to take a look at the law in a different way. He states that: all sources of international law (specified in Article 38 of the Statute of the ICJ) and EU law are in force in the Polish legal order, with the exception of international agreements, which only apply if they are ratified by the Republic of Poland and published in the Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland. The legal policy (conducted by the competent authorities in each forum based on the specific procedures) is the ius reflex, which inspires the development of lex and vice versa. The law applies beyond the borders of states’ jurisdictions (res communis) in the maritime and outer space and becomes a constitutional element of the new civilization (market and culture), which gradually affects the law within the jurisdiction of states (sovereignty and sovereign rights). The power of law ceases to guarantee the resolution of international conflicts, which forces the application of the law of force. The sine qua non condition to survive the new civilization is to protect humanity and to share resources fairly in the process of transformation.