The publication looks into the conflict that occurs between values protected under the Constitution of the Republic of Poland – i.e. the right to privacy and the protection of communication versus the protection of property rights – in a situation of declaration of bankruptcy. Acting pursuant to Article 176(2) of the Bankruptcy Law, the legislator has a priori given preference to the protection of property rights over the right to privacy and the protection of communication. The conflict in question has been resolved in favour of bankruptcy creditors. The legislator’s adoption of a hierarchy of values in the area of bankruptcy law does not, of course, deal with all the problems arising in the field of the conflict between these values, and does not mean that the solution chosen is in accordance with hierarchically higher norms – meaning constitutional norms. In principle, the Constitution of the Republic of Poland makes the legislator free to resolve conflicts of competing values protected under this normative act. What is important is that this conflict be resolved by the – legislator in a way that meets the requirements of Article 31(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.

It is quite paradoxical that such a negative social phenomenon as the ever-present threat of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its mutations has contributed to the exceptional acceleration of the widespread adoption of the institution of remote hearings in the area of civil trials in our country. Traditional hearings are no longer the only possible format of public hearing in the form of a trial. We are now witnessing a new quality in the way in which civil cases are heard. Most importantly, the nature of the court’s communication with the parties and other participants of such proceedings has changed significantly in the broad sense due to the remote nature of the hearings. At present, the venue where a court gets to hear the parties to proceedings is not only the courtroom in a court building, but also cyberspace. Thus, the landscape and the structure of civil trials have changed considerably.

It is quite paradoxical that such a negative social phenomenon as the ever-present threat of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its mutations has contributed to the exceptional acceleration of the widespread adoption of the institution of remote hearings in the area of civil trials in our country. Traditional hearings are no longer the only possible format of public hearing in the form of a trial. We are now witnessing a new quality in the way in which civil cases are heard. Most importantly, the nature of the court’s communication with the parties and other participants of such proceedings has changed significantly in the broad sense due to the remote nature of the hearings. At present, the venue where a court gets to hear the parties to proceedings is not only the courtroom in a court building, but also cyberspace. Thus, the landscape and the structure of civil trials have changed considerably.

This article considers the meaning of trust for judicial communication. The central tenet of this analysis is that trust is best conceptualized as a judicial virtue and that it can be most fully explained with aretaic language. This claim is elaborated through, first, making distinctions between trust and reliance, as well as between trust and trustworthiness. Second, exploring the determinants of trustworthiness leads the author to argue for a virtue account of judicial trustworthiness. Third, the article discusses whether and how trust as a particular attitude or propensity may be perceived as a judicial virtue. The argument concludes by considering the relation between trust in judges and trust in justice institutions, such as courts of law.

Article aims to invigorate the study of judicial smiles in Polish legal science. Judicial smiles are treated as an element of psycho-social processes in the courtroom, in particular the judge’s non-verbal communication. Such an opening will be made by identifying and discussing a few real cases of judges’ smiles in Poland, and more precisely in the courtrooms of Krakow’s lower courts (civil and criminal divisions). The empirical material was obtained through passive observation of the hearings, supported by a standardized observational questionnaire. According to the results, (i) there are more smiles of judges in courtrooms than one might think, (ii) a judge’s smiles during questioning the witnesses (as a rule) is generally less controversial than that smiles expressed in relation to parties or participants, (iii) five types of judicial smiles were distinguished, (iv) two of them seem to violate important procedural rules, while the role of others is positive, (v) it is possible to reflect on the development of the judges’ ability to use a smile in a situational manner, of course in a narrow scope and under many conditions.

The article deals with the normative patterns of communication of judges in a theoretical perspective. Their identification is thus taken as a universal problem, occurring in all legal cultures and regardless of current disputes concerning them. It is assumed that normative patterns of communication among judges are built on the understanding of the role of the judge and the place of the judiciary within checks and balances. Based on the assumption that the role of judges and the status of the judiciary have evolved, three successive historical models of judicial communication were proposed, i.e. the first model – impersonal, the second – self restrained, and the third – accurate communication. The thesis was also put forward that the last of the models may prove to be inadequate in the face of contemporary challenges, resulting primarily from cultural changes driven by the development of new communication technologies.

The goal of this article is to discuss the problem of communicativeness of the instructions given by judges to non-professional participants of court trials. The background of the considerations are the results of empirical research on communication in the courtroom, which, among other things, show that judges are significantly active in giving instructions. Drawing on research conducted within the “plain language” movement, the author points out those elements of instructions that increase their communicativeness and those that decrease it. As a result, some hints were formulated as an answer on question – how to increase the communicativeness of instructions given at the court trial?

The necessity of providing healthcare to citizens is one of the basic principles of every state, regulated by provisions of national, EU or international law and comple-mented by soft law. Civilisational changes and technological advancement make it possible to develop new healthcare tools and services (i.a. telemonitoring, telecon-sulting, telerehabilitation and electronic medical documentation). The COVID-19 pandemic greatly emphasised the need to provide such services. The wide use of e-health, however, which may be a remedy for numerous problems that the health-care sector is wrestling with, requires securing the rights of those who are not digitally included, especially the elderly. The prevalence of various degrees of digital exclusion, not only among the elderly, makes these issues socially significant and they should be solved by law. The purpose of the article is an initial analysis of the validity of developing e-health services in the ageing society in Poland and a presentation of proposals for adjusting legal solutions as regards the use of digital tools in healthcare to the changing reality.

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 article attempts to present the identity of the judge through the metaphor of the role as an interactive ritual. The framework of this ritual can be described by means of both intersubjective factors (e.g. legal rules) and individual factors (the subjectivity of the role performer). I apply this conception to the iconic symbol of justice in public space, which is usually associated with the figure of a woman whose eyes are covered with a blindfold, holding the scales of justice in one hand and a sword in the other. It is a visual symbol of the judge; one that is comprehensible to both lawyers and the public.
In carrying out this task, I refer to sociological and anthropological research in the field of visual culture. This perspective determines not only the subject matter covered by the theses formulated in the article but also the research method. It is assumed that visual representation constitutes a communication channel that has a great impact on individual and social memory. For this reason, the presentation of the role of the image and the methods of its interpretation is important for the debate about the role of the judge and the image of the judge in public space. This approach to the subject, which consists in shifting the emphasis from text to image, also rehabilitates the significance of visual representation in jurisprudence, a field traditionally dominated by the view that law is a linguistic phenomenon.

The purpose of the article is to study the sources and analyse the effects of one way of manipulating information on law in the media, i.e. the phenomenon of bullshitting’ (saying nonsense, sharing pseudo-information) on law and its work. A linguistic statement that involves ‘bullshitting’ is an eristic technique in written or oral communication, expressed by the sender in a specific environment with the purpose of convincing the addressee (audience) that things are so and so and making an impression of being professional and masking the fact that the sender does not care what the truth is. The ‘bullshitter’ does not make attempts to make their input into the conversation factual; they say anything, without any conviction of the truth; they say what they do not have sufficient grounds to claim. This phenomenon is an important factor that makes building the prestige of law (also in Poland) more difficult. Without taking care of the organisation of professional communication about law from professionals to citizens, manipulating information on law will cause permanent damage to legal awareness. The author compares this eristic technique with statements with include lies, provides examples of ‘bullshitting’ on law by politicians and journalists, and deals with the circumstances and effects of the phenomenon.

The purpose of the article is to study the sources and analyse the effects of one way of manipulating information on law in the media, i.e. the phenomenon of ‘bullshitting’ (saying nonsense, sharing pseudo-information) on law and its work. A linguistic statement that involves ‘bullshitting’ is an eristic technique in written or oral
communication, expressed by the sender in a specific environment with the purpose of convincing the addressee (audience) that things are so and so and making an impression of being professional and masking the fact that the sender does not care what the truth is. The ‘bullshitter’ does not make attempts to make their input into the conversation factual; they say anything, without any conviction of the truth; they say what they do not have sufficient grounds to claim. This phenomenon is an important factor that makes building the prestige of law (also in Poland) more difficult. Without taking care of the organisation of professional communication about law from professionals to citizens, manipulating information on law
will cause permanent damage to legal awareness. The author compares this eristic
technique with statements with include lies, provides examples of ‘bullshitting’
on law by politicians and journalists, and deals with the circumstances and effects
of the phenomenon.

The paper is devoted to selected issues concerning acts from the same day, i.e. 29 July 2020: the Electronic Communications Law, and the act introducing the Electronic Communications Law. Both drafts have been prepared in connection with implementing the provisions of Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 Establishing the European Electronic Communications Code (‘the EECC’) into the Polish legal order. Only selected issues from both draft acts were presented, for which the basic selection criterion was their significant practical importance in terms of their influence on the functioning of the telecommunications market in Poland. The purpose of the analysis and research was to answer the question whether the proposed regulations were compliant with the EECC and whether, from the perspective of the requirements of practice, effective solutions had been adopted. The analysis was based on comparing the projected EECC regulations and on possible practical consequences after their implementation. The analysis covers the projected provisions – from the Polish law and the EU law. The conducted analysis indicated a need for modifying them, in particular: imposing security obligations; the scope and manner of replacing the existing documents for customers with new ones; the conditions of customerv ideo verification; transitional provisions. The article presents proposals for specific amendments to the projected provisions. The presented issues are not only of theoretical importance, but also of great practical importance when it comes to the functioning of the telecommunications market and, above all, when it comes to customerswho use telecommunications services

In addition to search engines, social networks represent an important digital service for many Internet users. Social network services such as Facebook, Xing, or Twitter provide vital platforms for communication and sharing of content as part of a modern, user-friendly Internet. Public criticism of social networks is expressed in particular with regard to processing of personal data. These play a central role in business models of many social networks, with regard to their use e.g. for advertising purposes. A question is, if it can be assumed that market-dominant providers, due to a lock-in effect, can demand a wide-ranging consent for the collection and use of personal data that would be expected in a functioning competition? In the following, social networks, potential competition issues and possible legislative measures due to concentration tendencies in connection with access to user data in the area of social networks will be discussed.

The article undertakes a few aspects of clarity of legal texts acts for expert and for layman. There are two different points of view and two supporting proposals, which help to understand a law (a legal text act). The article focused on following issues: (1) a meaning of clarity of legal text act (as a specialized text), (2) linguistic competence, communicative competence, legal communicative competence, (3) legal textuality discourse, (4) question of simplification as a remedy for clarity of law, (5) legal text education as a developing of legal communicative competence.

This article covers considerations on the e-mail marketing of financial products and services aimed at consumers. The research paper presents the practice of banks used by those institutions in the e-marketing; basic concepts such as information, offer, advertisement, communication or spam have been considered. The article addresses in particular relevant problems linked to sending advertising materials by e-mail, i.e specifying what types of messages a bank may send to its customers, whether a bank may send such messages to all its customers, whether a bank may send such messages only to its customers, what the consumers rights with respect to receiving unwanted and unsolicited commercial information are. The research paper took into consideration current judicature and views of legal writers.