In recent years, it has been a relatively common practice for the Polish antitrust authority – the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (the OCCP) – to issue conditional decisions in merger control proceedings. Actually, this is not a practice known only to the Polish antitrust authority, as such decisions are also issued by the European Commission. Consents granted following this procedure allow participants to a planned concentration (also referred to as merger) to proceed, but under certain conditions – behavioural or structural. Several important issues arise especially with regard to the latter type of conditions, particularly in terms of the permissible degree of interference in the sphere of private legal rights and obligations of one or both participants in the concentration, and the consequences of failure to comply with the condition under which the concentration has been approved. These issues are the subject of this paper, which ends with conclusions and implications regarding the judicial practice of the Polish antitrust authority in the area in question.

The article addresses the problem of fabrication and falsification of scientific research in the context of the role that lawmakers can play in combating this practice. Legisla­tors may establish organisational units specialising in combating scientific miscon­duct (also referred to as ‘research misconduct’), having the authority to, for instance, to conduct investigations or recommend penalties. A researcher who commits such misconduct may face not only disciplinary, but also civil, administrative or criminal liability. The article discusses the results of a survey asking 70 Polish academics about their opinion on the role of legislators in countering fabrication and falsifica­tion in research. The findings show, for example, that respondents mostly support disciplinary responsibility for such misconduct (81%), and also believe that legisla­tors should combat this practice using ‘soft’ measures, such as promoting codes of ethics in research (70%). Half of those surveyed wanted such behaviour crimina­lised. According to almost half of the respondents, the Polish legislator does not combat such misconduct effectively.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the environmental authority proceeds when they receive a freedom of information request and when such a request pertains to a waste collection licence. This objective is closely accompanied by the research problem worded as follows:
1) Is an authority allowed to share information about a waste collection licence as requested under the freedom of information principle even though it is information about the environment and its protection?
2) Which pieces of information included in a waste collection licence are shared as public information and which as information about the environment and its protection?
The achievement of the research objective and solving the scientific problem served to put forward a research hypothesis that information on a waste collection licence is shared under the Environmental Law. Nevertheless, certain elements of information in waste collection licences are public information. The method of interpretation of the law in force was employed in this paper to achieve the above-mentioned scientific outputs

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 article covers the issue of the functioning of one of the advisory bodies of central governmental administration, i.e. the Council for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Affairs, which is associated with the President of the National Atomism Agency (PAA), the chief nuclear supervision body in Poland, which is the competent authority in nuclear safety and radiation protection affairs, as defined in the Atomic Law (Prawo atomowe). The article presents the objectives of the functioning of the Council as an advisory body to the nuclear supervision authority on the basis of international and European law and the views of the nuclear energy law doctrine. In relation to the Council, an important role is played by soft law acts, especially the so-called IAEA safety standards. Despite the fact that they are not legally binding, they constitute a valuable and extensive collection of recommendations supporting regional and national legislative activity. The purpose of this study is also a critical analysis of the amendment to the Atomic Law from 2016 in the section relating to changes made to the way of shaping the Council’s make-up. They caused the loss of one of the Council’s most important attributes, i.e. independence in the decision-making process and they deprived the President of the PAA (decision-making body) of influence on shaping its make-up. The changes introduced should be interpreted as an unequivocal negation of the ratio legis of appointing the Council and a significant step backwards in relation to the existing practice and legislative trends in recent years. The author postulates restoring the previous legal solutions as the ones that will allow the Council, the advisory body, to fulfil its function in the right way, really supporting the decision-making authority for which it works.

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 is a polemic between Leo Tolstoy, a Russian writer and a moralist of the nineteenth century, and Leon Petrażycki, a Polish lawyer and a philosopher of law of that period – on the social significance of law and morality. Tolstoy’s and Petrażycki’s roads crossed due to a young man named Krutik, a law student at the University of St. Petersburg. Krutik wrote a letter to Tolstoy, whom he considered a moral authority, asking to dispel his doubts caused by reading the works of Petrażycki. Indeed, Tolstoy affirmed
that the appropriate regulator of human life is morality. In contrast, Petrażycki proclaimed that the raison d’être has both morality and law, but if one compares their social significance, the higher value should be given to the law. Krutik had a dilemma, which thinker to agree with? Analysis of Tolstoy’s and Petrażycki’s views made in this article leads to the conclusion that in fact they were arguing about how to implement the idea of love, somewhat differently interpreted by them. While Tolstoy categorically rules out the possibility of realizing it on legal grounds, Petrażycki was firmly convinced that the law can, absolutely, be its carrie

A large number of opinions have been expressed about the decision C-131/12. Initially, Google’s defeat has been widely welcomed as the giant had suffered a bitter defeat. After a first joy about the containment of Google’s arrogance it became clear that the excessive claim for right to be forgotten will dry out our sources of information. Can privacy be seen as a fear for diversity of opinion? It may be due to the tension between data and reputation protection on the one hand and the possibility to protect against lies and fraud on the other hand. It is not just Google’s freedom of expression, which is in the centre of our interests. We want to find informations and Google is helping us in this regard. Forcing Google to suppress the information flow can not hinder Google to earn money. If we go through the opinion of the Advocate General and compare it with the reasoning of
the ECJ, then we come to the conclusion, that the ECJ had to decide in this a way on the grounds of the current legal status. The ECJ was standing with the back to the wall, because it has to apply the current law and this left no option open. Thus, the ECJ could not follow the opinion of the Advocate General. In the following I will shortly summarize the Spanish Data Protection Authority (SDPA) decision, before moving to the Advocate General opinion and the judgment of the ECJ and finally provide an outlook on possible
future development in this regard.

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.

The subject matter of the second part of the article (the first part was published in issue 1/2019 of the “Critique of Law”) is a continuation of the analysis of the impact of cultural patterns such as integrity, social dialogue, elimination of violence on the formation of the relationships between authorities and members of the state community.

The aim of the paper is to create an updated typology of soft law. It places soft law among mechanisms of a rather moral, sociological and political origin. This does not mean that it is completely irrelevant in legal terms, but the inclusion of the regulations of soft law in the framework of a “normative system” does not deserve to be taken into account i.a. due to the character of soft law (i.a. formulating the regulations in a general, imprecise manner, the uncertainty of introduced instruments, the lack of an obligatory force to implement them). This paper indicates the roles played by soft law in the international public law discourse. It also presents differences in their consideration on the grounds of the international law (including the Community law) as well as the internal law. Out of the whole catalogue of individual functions and tasks of soft law, special heed should be taken of the co-ordinating role of the mechanisms of soft law. Against this background, the paper makes a categorisation of the opinions of the Venice Commission in the framework of soft law. This is because they show the typical features of the mechanisms of that law: they play a binding role, relatively clarifying the international law, they are based on the undisputed authority of the creating entity. However, they are not subject to the forced implementation of them. In the conclusions of the paper, a chance, but also a fundamental threat related to the conduct of the international legal discourse on the basis of the mechanisms of soft law were indicated.

Authority – even though the title of this paper may suggest so – is not a phenomenon opposing culture. It is actually a product of culture or, as sometimes said, of the achievements of civilisation. Since authority is a product of culture, it may not be treated as a phenomenon isolated from it, without any ties with cultural patterns, which may – as a result – act as determinants of the institutional and functional qualities of authority. Culture and its products (including knowledge, law, religion, morality, etc.), like other social phenomena, can become factors stimulating the exercise of authority, or act as factors to stabilise or curb this exercise within the framework of the patterns (norms) it has created. Societies make constant choices in terms of adopting, modifying, and rejecting various cultural patterns.

The article is based on an assumption that constitutionalism has a Janus face. A constitution is both a legal and a political act. So far, the public domain has been dominated by legal constitutionalism (constitutional dogmatics), which excludes the constitution from the public sphere, subjecting it to the authority of lawyers-experts. The contemporary political phenomena such as: new populism, illiberal democracy or new constitutionalism should shift the interest of researchers to the political aspect of constitutionalism. Constitutionalism is, therefore, a multidimensional social practice. A political game featuring many actors. And the constitutionalism of lawyers is only one of its possible interpretations. Citizens also have their own constitutionalisms, and different perspectives on constitutionalism, reflecting opposing interests, may lead to conflicts. The constitutional law dogmatics applied to resolve such conflicts would argue for the existence of a transcendental framework for their resolution. A more political approach denies the existence of such a framework. In other words, the dogmatics in question requires democracy to adapt to constitutionalism, while the political approach requires constitutionalism to adapt to democracy. The text is an introduction to a part of a volume featuring articles by authors affiliated with the Centre for Legal Education and Social Theory of the University of Wrocław.

The purpose of this article is, first of all, to answer the question of how the court determines parental authority in divorce judgments in comparison with judgments separating. It was also analyzed whether the court, in divorce matters and in matters relating to separation, duly and thoroughly carries out evidence proceed-ings, using all available and adequate evidence in a given case. This article contains theoretical considerations regarding parental authority in Polish family law. In addition, the article analyzes the author’s own research – the files concerning cases in which the Court settled the parental authority of divorced parents and spouses separated.

The 2018 amendment of the Polish Electoral Code established the institution of electoral officials, who replaced the institution of electoral plenipotentiaries, existing since 1998. One of the main differences between the two institutions is that electoral officials may not work at commune offices in charge of preparing and holding election in the area of their jurisdiction. The aim of the adopted solution was to isolate local government administration from the election process. The article offers a critical analysis of the institution of electoral officials. The subject matter of the discussion is both the legal regulation and the conclusions drawn from the examination of the institution in question, conducted by the Stefan Batory Foundation after the end of the 2018 local government elections, when the electoral officials fulfilled their statutory duty for the first time. The discussion leads to the conclusion that the establishment of the institution of electoral officials was not well thought out, and actually took place without appropriate consultation. The provisions of the Electoral Code are often vague. They have not been clarified to a sufficient extent in the resolutions adopted by the National Electoral Commission either. It is reasonable to have electoral officials appointed for a six-year term of office by the Head of the National Electoral Office. What is surprising, however, is that electoral officials may run for an office during elections taking place in a constituency outside of their area of activity as well as engage in election cam paigns – except for their own campaigns – while they should remain completely impartial during the election. The vague status of electoral officials and of the principles of their remuneration made it very difficult to attract individuals willing to perform this function. The headcount originally assumed had to be reduced by half; now it is 2,600. It is also necessary to reconsider the number of electoral officials assigned to individual communes. A major flaw of the adopted regulation is the lack of a clear division of duties and responsibilities between electoral official and communes. All this casts a bad light on the institution of electoral officials. It is argued that they were poorly prepared to perform the duties they were entrusted with. They also lacked the necessary theoretical knowledge and were not familiar with local conditions and constraints. Therefore, instead of helping, they made the work of commune officials only harder. But the call for dissolving the institution altogether is not legitimate. It is necessary to return to the previous solution, where the electoral officials in a commune were the officials working at commune offices, regular employees of these basic local government units. In communes with larger populations, there may be even more such officials. It is essential to reinforce the status of electoral officials, which is why it is important to clearly definthe nature of their relationships with the commune heads (town/city mayors) as well as to strengthen their position and grant them authority in the field of duties carried out as part of elections and referenda over other commune officials. It is also requisite to appoint them for terms of office of a particular number of years, and remunerate them in fixed monthly amounts – with the amounts increased in periods of preparing and holding elections or referenda. Only this way will it be possible to have a proper Electoral Official Service composed of professional commune officials specialising in organising and holding elections and referenda.

The subject matter of this paper is the analysis of the phenomenon of subordination
as a manifestation of the relationships between political authority and society and of the phenomenon of equality as an inherent right of individuals. The author has made an attempt to examine the mutual relationships between the two phenomena, especially from the perspective of the impact on the establishment of relationships between political authority and society.

In 2018 Student Services Employee Association (Stowarzyszenie Forum Dzieka na-tów) was established. One of its aims is to get involved in a dialogue with organi­sations and institutions dealing with higher education, in particular with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education as the relevant public authority. In this regard the Association proposed three amendments to the Act of Higher Education and Science in terms of administrative procedure, in particular: notice on initiation of procedure, simplified procedure and silent settlement of case, which were sub-mitted to the Ministry. As a bottom­up initiative of student services employees at HEIs, it enables them to get involved in consulting acts on higher education and proposing amendments to these regulations. This role of the Association is significant due to the fact that in many HEIs student services employees have no ability to provide feedback on the regulations that they are executing.