In this article, the Polish institution of administrative entry to the area in order to carry out repair, maintenance or removal of failures of transmission equipment will be presented. It entitles to public-law interference in the constitutionally protected property right, under the condition that the determinants of its application have been met. The aim of the analysis is to indicate that the expropriation nature of this regulation, which is a specific form of expropriation, requires a strict interpretation of the premises leading to the restriction of the ownership for purposes related to transmission activity. An attempt will be made to demonstrate that the restriction of the ownership made on the basis of an administrative decision meets the expropriation standards applicable in the Polish legal system. The presented issues are not only of purely theoretical importance, but will also be used in the application of legal regulations by both public administration authorities and transmission companies applying for a permission.

This article provides only a small contribution to the inevitable scholarly discussion on whether excluding the primacy of the literal rule in favour of the priority of a pro-EU teleological interpretation in the judicial and administrative applications of Polish tax law is really reasonable. Firstly, this article sets out to discuss the stages of the transposition of the concept of a household from EU legislation into the provisions of the Excise Duty Act. Secondly, it presents the evolution in the lines of the interpretation of this term as used by tax authorities and national courts. Thirdly, it demonstrates the negative legal and fiscal consequences that are caused in practice by the definition of this term as framed by the Polish legislator.

The workplace, a certain kind of organisation (which consists of people and, therefore, is social in nature), is crucial for perceiving labour law from the perspective of public administration. Put simply, if one wants to view the fulfilment of tasks or public functions within the realm of labour law, one always needs to bear in mind that although one might be referring to ‘the employer’, the discussion, in fact, refers to the workplace, with the employer being a certain ‘organ’ or emanation of the workplace. This reflection fills me with particular joy as a researcher because it necessitates the appreciation of the human ommunity at the workplace despite the considerable reluctance of the Polish labour law doctrine to accept the workplace as a human community and an administrative-legal construct of social organisation. I believe that the workplace must be recognised as a key institution in the theory of labour law and this is beyond any doubt. The social consequences of failing to recognise the workplace can be dramatic. Moreover, in a situation where other human communities are scarce, the importance of the community of the workplace (especially if one remembers its relative stability) turns out to be fundamental.

The consequence of establishing a health resort is the special rigour of protecting the territory covered by it. The rigour consists i.a. in a ban on mining mineral resources other than natural medical resources, engaging in land development or other works that influence water relations as well as engaging in activities that have a negative influence on the physiography of the health resort. The facts of the case lead to a conclusion that it also does not concern the inside of the earth’s crust ‘under’ the health resort. The dispute as the subject of the judgement voted on concern mining hard coal from a deposit lying several hundred metres below the surface of the resort. The company has had a concession for mining it for years, while it applied for a confirmation of an annex to the plan for moving the mining establishment engaging in such activity. According to the Supreme Administrative Court, the opinion of the municipal executive authority, in whose opinion the change that the company applied for would violate the purpose of the property defined by the health resort status, was lawful. However, many arguments speak for the incorrectness of the assessment.

The purpose of the research conducted is to present the directions of changes in
the Polish legislation on accessing and reusing public information, showing perspectives for public information in administration. The pursue of it is accompanied by a diagnosis of the most important issues in the execution of the guaranteed information powers, and also by an analysis of the judicature’s work and postulates of the doctrine in this regard. The object of the study using the method of dogmatic-
legal analysis covers Polish and European normative acts, scientific publications,
the case law of administrative courts and the Constitutional Tribunal. The results
indicate that the issues and doubts raised concern the fundamental aspects of
access to public information, as well as detailed issues related to establishing a legal
framework for the principles of reusing that information. The current directions
of changes fit into building administration that is based on open public data, which
will not only ensure wide access to public information but will also create and gather
data in a way that will allow for the further economic use of those data by the private
sector. Resolving the existing problems in exercising information rights and implementing the projected changes will both pose a considerable challenge to the public administration. The conducted research allowed for formulating legislative postulates and remarks addressed to the legislator, as well as practical solutions concerning the organisation of the administration apparatus.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the legislator decided to increase the capacity of public administration to operate. Therefore, the provisions of the special act introduced additional tools for the voivode. As a result, a special type of voivode’s „command” was introduced into the legal system. He can now outsource activities to selected authorities and entities in his voivodeship. The paper attempts to locate this new competence in the catalog of legal forms of the voivode’s activity and an attempt to perform a systemic assessment of the compliance of this instrument with the existing models of administrative law.

Mediation in the administrative procedure is a new institution that provides a chance for an improved perception of public administration, yet it also gives rise to a range of doubts. The latter spring chiefly, though not solely, from the nature of administrative control. The principles of the rule of law, objective law, and voluntary mediation, which may be taken an improper advantage of, contrary to the legislator’s intentions, are also identified as barriers.
Analysis of the issue implies that administrative proceedings leave room for mediation. Whether it will fulfil expectations, however, largely depends on the attitudes of parties and administrative authorities, or their employees, to be precise, for whom mediation is undoubtedly both a processual and mental challenge.
The introduction of mediation to the Code of Administrative Procedure is to be applauded, mainly from the perspective of inducing citizens’ trust in public authorities. Mediation may also prove an effective instrument of eliminating conflicts in administration and thus contribute to reducing the caseload to be heard by administrative courts.
It is important, though, for this opportunity to be taken proper advantage of and for the transformation of administration from controlling to mediating and more friendly to subjects administered to continue. This is a trend that deserves to be followed not only in Polish but also other legislations.

Recently, interest in the method of administrative law regulations to tackle the problems of labour law has remained high in the Polish doctrine of labour law. New studies on this subject emerge every now and then. Leaving aside the perceived validity of the method to arrange labour law relations based on public law, I would like to point to the undoubted “appeal” of the axiological foundations of administrative law for the labour law system and, at the same time, to reflect on the consequences of the aforesaid axiology when looking at the potential choice between the method based on private law or public law in the realm of labour law relations. I assume that such a choice should be ultimately made for the sake of the science of labour law. However if labour is treated as a commodity, there can be no question of an extensive axiology that highlights the good of humans and the morality of the employer.

The purpose of this article is to answer a handful of research questions. Can the numerous reliefs and exemptions provided for in tax law be qualified as the public subjective rights of the taxpayer?
Answering the question formulated in this way requires the verification of the research hypothesis, according to which tax reliefs and exemptions are, contrary to the judgments of the CT and the SAC, the subjective rights of the taxpayer.
Generally speaking, no publications in the tax law literature are devoted to the topic of interpreting tax reliefs and exemptions as the subjective rights of the taxpayer.
The main conclusion is that only systemic tax reliefs and only those systemic exemptions that jointly meet the two conditions can be considered the subjective rights of a taxpayer. First of all, they have a nature of disposable exemptions, i.e. the ones which involve the taxpayer’s right to make a choice. Secondly, the use of an exemption cannot be subject to administrative discretion. In the case of systemic tax reliefs, the verification of the first condition is always positive because there is no doubt that all systemic reliefs regulated in tax laws are the subjective rights of the taxpayer

The purpose of the article is to present selected aspects of the issue of legal (administrative and legal) impossibility and to propose structural solutions that can contribute to reducing the scale of that negative phenomenon. Firstly, the article refers to the causes of legal impossibility and its form. Next, a structural solution that has been used and verified in developed administrations, that is, the accountability of administration, was presented, and its application to Polish administrative law was proposed. The study includes the use of, among other things, the method of transferring management solutions to administrative law. In the paper, a thesis was formulated that a systemic and correct introduction of the institution of the accountability of administration into the Polish system of administrative law (in the form of proper structural norms) may significantly contribute to reducing the scope of legal impossibility. The reflections presented in the article are provided in two dimensions – one that is formal and dogmatic and another that concerns legal realism.

The aim of this article is to answer the question whether taxpayers are entitled to any subjective rights that are overtly, unambiguously and legibly laid down in tax law. The author presents the title issue by analysing a broad base of judicature by
Poland’s CT, the EUCJ and Poland’s administrative courts, also discussing the relevant literature concerning subjective rights as coded in the provisions of the Polish Constitution and tax law. Taxpayers’ subjective rights may constitute an effective protection measure not only vis-a-vis the administrative discretion of tax authorities, but also in the event of their abuse of administrative power in relations with entities obliged to pay levies.

The paper focuses on the issue of public enforcement of consumer law in Poland. This analysis considers exclusively the stage of administrative proceedings and it does not concern judicial control over the decisions issued. The analysis aims at answering the question whether the phenomenon of legal impossibilism is to be observed in the domain administrative proceedings instituted by the President of the UOKiK with the purpose of implementing consumer policy. The hypotheses to be verified in the foregoing are as follows: (i) there are procedural mechanisms which enable an authority to effectuate protection of consumer rights, operating to the public benefit, and that (ii) it might be reasonable to expect that these mechanisms are exploited in practice by the President of the UOKiK. The first part considers the legal framework for enforcing consumer rights with the use of public law mechanisms in Poland. In the second part, the discussion revolves around the
practical application of the legal instruments by the President of the UOKiK. The
conclusions constitute a starting point to initiate further, in-depth empirical studies
related to the activities undertaken by the President of the UOKiK with the aim
to effectuate protection of consumer rights in Poland.

The article discusses Polish social welfare within the context of the economic analysis of law. Specific issues addressed in the article are: cost, time, ways of setting matters, the number of issued decisions and the beneficiaries of social welfare in Poland. Following the presentation, the obvious question arises concerning the legitimacy of the use of certain solutions, particularly in the context of their financial performance. Reflections on the social care model used in Poland are presented in the article, as well as the crisis of law as part of the broader issue of the crisis of the modern Western democratic state.

The purpose of the article is to characterise the main reasons and consequences of the division of sub-central government tasks between its own tasks and commissioned tasks and the indication of some controversy related to this issue. The author analyses in particular certain types of local government tasks (concerning the most important spheres of local activity, such as welfare, education, or health) and its qualification to the category of „its own tasks”. The essential conclusion of the paper is that in many cases the qualification of specific public affairs to one or the other category of self-government tasks is determined not so much by its specific „nature”, but primarily by its fiscal consequences, including the ability to pass the obligation of its financing to local authorities. The research methodology used in the article is based on a critical analysis of the legal acts as well as literature on public finance and financial and administrative law.

This article concerns the problem associated with the nature of the institution of a petition for reconsideration of the case in view of regulation No 16 of the Administrative Procedur Code in the version before the amendment dated 3 December 2010, which entered into force on 11 April 2011. Despite the amendment, to this day the provision is the source of many disputes, which is reflected in a very non-uniform judicial practice. On the basis of this regulation can be observed, how defective constructed legal provisions affect the administration of justice and the application of the law by creating situations in which the courts take over the functions of law making. On the selected example is shown, how one decision of the Supreme Court, being the basis of decisions of courts of appeal, causes that victims defective administrative decision are charged with the responsibility for legislative errors. Knowledge of the matter, which is the subject of this publication, is extremely important for all practitioners as well as theorists of the law because of the importance of the issues, which accompany the main theme. The work is based on an analysis of the concept of finality and validity of administration decision and depth on theoretical consideration and extensive discussion of the judicial practice of administrative courts, civil courts and Constitutional Tribunal.

The forms of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedures were developed in the 1960s in the United States. The ADR is based on conciliation of the parties rather than judgement. This is possible through ensuring of broad participation of the parties in the dispute resolution. The ADR has as its objective the replacement of the adjudication process by forms of arbitration, contract, mediation and conciliation. The goal is to reach
a compromise. The basic division of the ADR is into the basic and the mixed (hybrid) forms. The basic ones include mediation, negotiations and arbitration. The hybrid forms include, for example, conciliation, fact finding, mini-trial. The ADR tools are successfully used for solving disputes in civil law, labour law, and administrative law and even in criminal cases. American agencies also apply ADR procedure called reg-neg to work out the content of legal regulations between officials and representatives of the parties concerned. ADR forms are also used in appeal proceedings. Despite unquestionable advantages of the ADR methods, there are critics who blame them for lowering the standard of the judiciary. There is no doubt that the application of ADR results in de-formalisation and simplification of the court proceedings and often in delegating the position of a negotiator or mediator to people without a legal background. However, this should not overshadow the greatest asset of the ADR, namely, the achievement of permanent agreements satisfactory for both parties.

The article discusses the differences and similarities between discretionary, judicial power and administrative authority. It indicates a possible recognition of the administrative and discretionary power. The author also considers possible risks in a democratic state governed by the rule of law, associated with the abuse of discretionary by administrative authority.

Pursuant to article 9 clause 2 of Ordinance of the President of the Republic of Poland on Administrative Procedure of 1928, persons which possessed so-called legal interest in the case, were entitled to participate in the administrative procedure as a party. Both in procedure initiated by the authority ex officio and initiated on their own demand. The essential and still unsettled question of this construction is: who is authorised by the law to establish the existence of that legal interest, and consequently who decides on the admission of the applicant to the proceeding. This issue has been transferred to the Tax Code of 1997 with the implementation of that scheme, without taking into consideration the legal specificity of the tax assessment, especially self-assessment, to the tax procedure. Furthemore, pursuant to the ontological system, presented by Roman Ingarden in his work Controversy over the Existence of the World, an object which is the initiation of the procedure is an event, not a thing, processes, purely intentional object or an idea. Tax procedural law does not distinguish and name various types of objects properly, which causes serious problems as to legal interpretation. The aim of this work is to give some basic legal and philosophical directions for the reconstruction of the institution of the tax procedure initiation.