The article examines theoretical and practical problems concerning the realisation of participatory democracy’s potential for forming and implementing state policy on counteracting epidemics. The article is aimed at the study of participatory democracy as a tool of state’s interaction with the public while counteracting epidemics throughout history, from antiquity to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Comparative, comparative legal, systemic-structural, dialectical, historical and other scientific methods have been employed to examine the issues discussed in the article. The application of the aforementioned methods is conducted on the interdisciplinary scientific basis.

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.

The paper discusses the procedure before the guardianship court regarding granting so-called surrogate approval of providing a healthcare service, particularly vaccination against COVID-19, to persons who are unable to make a conscious decision in this regard for objective reasons – health or age. The currently applicable provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure and the Act on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Professions were analysed. Due to lack of any separate procedural regulation of procedure in this regard, special attention was paid to the right court representation of the person whom the approval concerns and to the issue of gathering and assessing evidence. The authors’ goal was in particular to evaluate legal loopholes noticed in practice and to indicate possible practical and procedural solutions, which is specifically essential in the current epidemiological situation, as nowadays these types of proceedings constitute a significant percentage of cases examined by courts.

The subject of the article is an analysis of the legal solutions governing the princi-ples of handling medical waste and municipal waste produced by people under quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic together with an analysis of the impact of the instruments specified therein on the existing legislative solutions and the prospective effects of the adoption of these regulations. The paper analyses the current legal framework, highlighting the uniqueness of the legal institutions used (in the context of a province governor’s orders excluding local law regulations or statutory obligations, and contracts specifying the manner of performance of public tasks entrusted), as well as the impact of these regulations on the subsequent operation of waste management facilities. At the same time, a number of practical problems that may arise in connection with the application of solutions provided under the existing law have been brought to light.

Protection of children against sexual exploitation, particularly against exploitation in cyberspace, constitutes one of the most burning issues of the modern world. The Internet is frequently used as the beginning of the road to sexually exploiting a child, and as way of earning the child’s trust and gaining physical access to them. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic and isolation resulting from it brought with them substantial threats, also in this area, whose effects will be long-term. What was observed during the pandemic was not only an increase in online traffic related to the distribution of child pornography, but also a definite increase in behaviours that may be classified as grooming. It is sometimes considered that grooming is the basic method leading to child sexual exploitation, or even its immanent feature. Relatedly, what becomes an important issue is an analysis of legal regulations that concern grooming in cyberspace, and an attempt to answer the question whether the scope and level of protection provided to children by Polish criminal law are sufficient.

In case of conventional vehicles, no or very little data was generated. The widespread use of autonomous vehicles, which have a large number of sensors and camera systems in addition to memory modules and carry out permanent data exchange, has the potential to reveal not only the entire living conditions of the passengers, but also those of pedestrians, and others. The increasing networking of vehicles increases efficiency and mobility. On the one hand, this networking is entirely voluntary, but it can also be mandatory, as in the case of the eCall emergency call system. Regulation (EU) 2015/758 made it mandatory for car-manufacturers from March 31, 2018 to equip their vehicles with automatic emergency call system, which in the event of an accident automatically transmits the position and other relevant data to the rescue services. Can this possibility of ubiquitous surveillance may create legal problems.? This increasing role of data requires special attention against the background of data protection based on fundamental rights and privacy.

The right to the city is a solution that can be considered in terms of third-generation human rights. The right to the city also serves as a tool for the effective fulfilment and respect of human rights agreed at the international level as well as the Sustainable Development Goals expressed in the 2030 Agenda. This is undoubtedly a new paradigm for urban development, which provides an alternative framework for rethinking cities and urbanisation. It aims to address the main challenges in cities and human settlements. The purpose of the article is to present an understanding of the right to the city by the analysis of its structure and the answer to the question of whether it is in fact a third-generation human right.

The purpose of the article is to show how significant it is to ensure safety for persons
who collect and give donations during public collections. The analysis of the Act of 14 March 2014 on the Principles of Holding Public Collections (Journal of Laws of 2020, item 1672, consolidated text) leads to a conclusion that the legislator did not refer to this issue in the act in any way. However, undoubtedly, the regulation of the issue is necessary because large sums of money or donations in kind of great value are frequently collected as a result of holding public collections, and the participants are exposed to the loss of their health or even lives. In view of this fact, the author suggests introducing provisions that regulate the issue in line with the provisions included in the Act of 24 July 2015 – the Law on Assemblies (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 631, consolidated text) into the Act on the Principles of Holding Public Collections.

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.

The subject of this paper focuses on issues concerning criminal liability for a crime committed while inebriated or intoxicated. These issues, whose social significance is indisputable, continue to be controversial from the perspective of criminal law. One reason for this is the shortcomings of Article 31 § 3 of the Criminal Code, which serves as the basis to hold an offender who was in said state tempore criminis criminally liable. The purpose of this paper, however, is not so much to criticise the current legal solution as to offer a proposition de lege ferenda concerning a change in the wording of the said provision on the grounds of the reservations raised. The conclusions that lead to it are derived both from the dogmatic-legal analysis of the cited provision and from the empirical approach motivated by the psychopathological view of the state of intoxication, or the problem of (in)sanity of the perpetrator of a prohibited act. These issues are ingrained in the regulation contained in § 3 of Article 31 of the Criminal Code. It is the will of the criminal legislator for the scope of Article 31 of the Criminal Code to encompass a variety of states which may seem similar from a psychopathological point of view they, but actually require a different legal approach with regard to criminal-legal aspects and criminal policy, which this study aims to present.

Corruption has been the centre of attention on a global scale. Almost all studies concentrate on corruptive effects on the governance, economics or politics. This paper investigates the citizens’ perceptions towards corruption and anti-corruption in Vietnam. This is a new look contributing to the panoramic picture of anti-corrup-tion. The study employed a descriptive approach with a researcher-made ques-tionnaire for 385 respondents selected by a stratified random sampling method based on Cochran’s formula. It was found out that preventive measures and corrup tion laws are not severe enough to admonish corruption offenders. Transpa-rency is not highly promoted for people to access information, so citizens’ super-vision is not very effective. There is a mismatch between citizens’ perceptions and external organisations’ assessment. It is necessary to implement anti-corruption law strictly and renovate people’s right to get corruptive information. Moreover, the government should recheck and adjust preventive anti-corruption laws to match each specific type of corruption. Urgently, the operation of the state appa-ratus ought to cooperate and join hands to combat corruption. It is advisable for the government to collaborate with external organisations to exchange experience in curbing corruption

One of the basic aspects of modern education is the development of key compe-tences. This requirement is included in the legislative acts (domestic ones and those of the European Union) as well as in documents specifying core curricula in individual countries. By analysing this problem as exemplified by Poland, we show that communication competence in the language of the legislative acts, fun-damental for a modern, conscious people, is an absent element of key competences. In the article, we show why it is important to learn about the real features of the legislative acts in a rapidly changing, knowledge-oriented society. We present the results of the analysis of the core curriculum applicable in Poland for secondary schools in terms of legal education. We also present a proposal to include issues developing legal communication competence in the secondary school curriculum.

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.