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.

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.

This paper discusses judicial duty of improving the law on epistemic grounds and claims in that regarding this obligation, it is possible to give a place to free speech from an epistemic point of view. As a requirement of having epistemic agency, judges like other human beings have epistemological responsibility. Different from the others’ responsibility, judges’ responsibility is connected to their duty of improving the law, which is required by their job as well as the idea of the rule of law and judicial professional principles. Judges should improve the law’s capacity to guide the conduct of its citizens, who are obligated to obey the law. Improving the law also improves the delivery of justice. The ways of legal interpretation and justification are important to improve it. While applying the law, judges can find the law unclear or they may encounter some norm conflicts. In these cases, they
should resolve them to keep the law ‘legally in good shape’, which should meet epistemological requirements. When fulfilling this obligation, judicial free speech on epistemic grounds should not be limited.

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.

The paper analyzes the concept of integrity of a judge from the perspective of the virtue jurisprudence. There are the judicial virtues specified and described, including integrity as one of the elements of the virtue of justice. Subjective and objective integrity are distinguished, as well as personal, professional and institutional integrity. Integrity of a judge is understood as personal integrity combined with professional integrity and also institutional integrity in which values and aims of the profession are taken into account. Virtue jurisprudence does not provide clear directives for solving legal disputes but it emphasizes the necessity of referring to the dispositions of a judge in order to understand fully the process of judgment. On the grounds of virtue jurisprudence, the integrity of a moral subject if assumed which provides the foundation for trust in the profession of judge and does not allow for the separation of social roles, assuming the possibility of reconciling them with the use of prudence. The problem of conflicting virtues, namely integrity and impartiality in the context of judicial review is discussed on the example of the judgment of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of October 22, 2020, K 1/20 which illustrates judicial activism. The considerations concerning this example bring about the conclusion that in the most controversial political and moral disputes, political prudence suggest the direction of the virtue of judicial restraint due to deference of democracy and the division of powers.

The creation of a unified empire by Charlemagne required quite a number of victims, one of whom was Tassilo III, the last duke of the Agilolfing dynasty reigning in Bavaria for two centuries. The history of his fall may awake the legal historians’ interest because the Frank monarch dethroned him not by means of a bloody military defeat but by a legal trial (now called show trial1) in 788. Before the trial Charlemagne isolated Tassilo both in foreign and home affairs by means of carefully measured diplomatic steps. Finally, putting him under his jurisdiction in 787, he made him his vassal. The main charges brought against Tassilo were infidelitas, i.e., unfaithfulness to the liege lord and harisliz, i.e., desertion – though the latter was claimed to had been carried out a quarter of a century before the legal trial. The given work aims to enlighten the legal background of this rather opaque case by contouring the historical context. First we consider Tassilo’s reign and the historical background of the trial, then we investigat the Franko-Bavarian conflict and the iuramenta fidelitatis of Tassilo. In the end, after highlighting the question of infidelitas and of harisliz we analyse the show trial itself.

The aim of the article is to outline the relationship between the rule of law and civic engagement in the public sphere and to attempt to answer the question whether the rule of law can be an effective tool in preventing the transformation of democracy in a tyranny of the majority; whether it can also create optimal conditions for democracy to develop. In other words, does the rule of law serve democracy and political engagement or does it rather limit the spontaneity of civic activity because stability cannot be reconciled with the freedom of citizens? The current “juridification” of the public domain (the expansion of law into various areas of social existence) marginalises the validity and scope of civic presence in the decision-making process in the name of law-abidingness and the neutrality of instruments of control and of choices made by the ruling power. Can the effective solution to this situation be the opening of the concept of the rule of law to the idea of political nature and the expansion of the domain of grassroots participation?

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 aim of the publication is to establish the function of the legal regulation of the principle of resolving legal doubts in favour of the citizen (in dubio pro libertate), introduced by the amendment of 2017 to the Code of Administrative Procedure. The purpose of the article is also to compare the state of the regulation in force at the time of its entry into force with the legal state created after the introduction of the amendment. It has been argued that the introduced principle worsened the legal situation of citizens in relation to their situation before its entry into force. The paper briefly presents the functions of law, including procedural law. This principle has been discussed and it has been established that it has a protective function. First and foremost, to ensure the security and stability of the law when the legislator has failed to fulfil its duty to legislate correctly and fairly. This function is of particular importance in cases where an administrative body unilaterally determines constitutional rights and freedoms. Resolving legal doubts in favour of the citizens is of particular importance in administrative law, which is very dynamic area (inflation and atomisation of this law), specialised (e.g. technical conditions of development) and complex due to the existence of various hierarchies of sources of law (constitution, statutes and secondary legislation, including local laws). The principle also protects other values, such as an important public interest. As a result of the comparison of the state of regulation before 2017, it was established that as long as the principle of in dubio pro libertate was a postulate of the doctrine, court judgments, interpreted from other principles of administrative proceedings, it did not suffer such significant limitations and could serve more fully to protect an entity. It the current state of law, administrative bodies can make use of it in a limited way only to several proceedings. Nor does it apply if there is – as is common in administrative proceedings – an important social interest or conflicting legal or factual interests of the parties concerned. The originality of the work results from taking into account the case law developed since the entry into force of the principle and the comparison and analysis of the situation of citizens before and after its introduction into the Code. The research carried out for the purpose of this work will be based on the comparative legal method as well as legal-dogmatic analysis, including the analysis of Polish normative material and the resulting views of the judicature and doctrine of law.

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.

The aim of the present paper is to operationalise the concept of the political in
order to make it available as an analytical category for the critical study of judicial
decisions (case law). The concept of the political is understood here, following, in
particular, Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic theory, whereby it is a dimension of a social
antagonism. Such an antagonism can be played out not only in the process of
legislation (creation of abstract and general legal norms), but also in the process of
adjudication (the so-called ‘application of law’, which, however, always has a creative
element to it). As an analytical category, the political can be operationalised
in order to subject judicial decisions to a critique which goes beyond the question
of the ‘correct’ interpretation and ‘application’ of law in a given case, but puts in the
spotlight real social, political and economic conflicts that are at stake. The analytical
framework is exemplified by judicial decisions of the European Court of Justice.

In the article, I contrast the contemporary legal dogma with the challenges underlying the political nature of law and judicial practice. Both the Continental jurisprudence and the judicial decisions issued by European courts are dominated by the dogmatic current – and treated as politically neutral acts. My intention is to carefully verify this quite common belief in this paper. Making use of H. Berman’s views, I assume that the present shape of jurisprudence and the judicial practice based thereon have been established as a result of political conflicts and that the legal dogma is capable of neutralising and solving modern-day political conflicts precisely because of the qualities of the said shape. It is therefore both a political and an apolitical activity. But this paradox is only apparent. In its strive to keep its paradigm alive, the dogma should be flexible in reacting to the challenges occurring in its political environment. It can – and should – modify the “buffer” of the theory upon which it is set in order to retain its core. In the article, I try to answer the question about the boundaries of the possible adaptation of jurisprudence and juridical practice with respect to claims raised by the domain of politics – claims currently articulated as the strongest by the so-called critical theories of adjudication. The final part of the paper is an attempt – based on the example of theses formulated in monograph
by R. Mańko, W stronę krytycznej filozofii orzekania – to outline the said boundaries.

What is law and what is teaching – remains disputable. The departure point shouldbe the notio n of law, which cannot be said to exist without reference to normativity, binding power and predictability. The obstacle in teaching law is that there are several centrifugal forces resulting in disintegration of law. These are, for example: creating fake sources of law such as binding recommendations, amending laws by lower-ranking acts, which is the specialty of the EU; informally adopting the
common law doctrine of stare decisis by Continental Judges; using the interpretation of law as a fig leaf for actually amending it; demanding the disregarding of national laws by judges if they come to the conclusion that national laws are in violation of the EU law by the EU Court, even if there is no procedural framework to do so. In teaching law, a teacher should promote theories and practices conducive to the cohesion of the legal system. Teachers have to take sides in the encounter of conflicting ideas and practices in the spirit of fighting for a better law.

The article discusses the issue of the conflict between social roles in the professional activity pursued by so-called liberal professions, especially by researchers. It offers a normative approach to the issue as covered in the Code of Ethics for Research Workers (Kodeks Etyki Pracownika Naukowego) and in the Code of Good Practices in Universities (Dobre Praktyki w Szkołach Wyższych). Emphasis has been placed on the types of conflicts and on their significance to the ethical aspect of professional
activity, accompanied by a simultaneous reminder that conflict tends to be a factor contributing to the axiological balance in society and to society’s efficiency.

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 aim of the article is to outline the relationship between the rule of law and civic engagement in the public sphere and to attempt to answer the question whether the rule of law can be an effective tool in preventing the transformation of democracy in a tyranny of the majority; whether it can also create optimal conditions for democracy to develop. In other words, does the rule of law serve democracy and political engagement or does it rather limit the spontaneity of civic activity because stability cannot be reconciled with the freedom of citizens? The current ‘juridification’ of the public domain (the expansion of law into various areas of social existence) marginalises the validity and scope of civic presence in the decision-making process in the name of law-abidingness and the neutrality of instruments of control and of choices made by the ruling power. Can the effective solution to this situation be the opening of the concept of the rule of law to the idea of political
nature and the expansion of the domain of grassroots participation?

Even though the proportionality principle is well-established for judicial review in matters pertaining to human rights in modern constitutional law in numerous jurisdictions, it has recently become subject to a growing tide of criticism. The article aims to describe and critically analyze the main arguments raised by the opponents of using proportionality as the tool for adjudicating conflicts of fundamental rights. After briefly describing the typical and the most common structure of the proportionality test as it is used in constitutional law, the author would present – and then dismiss – the three most significant allegations towards the proportionality analysis, namely: the problem of incommensurability, the alleged proportionality’s moral neutrality as well as the scope of judicial discretion that is claimed to be too wide according to some of proportionality’s opponents.

Jerusalem, especially the Temple Mount (Moriah), has been sanctified by the three biggest monotheistic religions. By Judaism – the binding of Isaac (Old Testament), King David pronouncing Jerusalem the capital of the ancient country of Israelites, and two demolished temples. By Christianity – Christ prayed in the Second Temple, becoming later crucified and buried in Jerusalem. The ruins of the Second Temple became the site where the Muslim Al-Aqsa Mosque was built. The contemporary conflict is marked by: the emergence of the State of Israel (1948) and the capturing of Jerusalem (1967), Russian influences exerted by the Orthodox Church and Oriental churches, the political impact of Jewish messianism combined with a mass support for evangelical fundamentalism as offered by the Republican Party in the US,the conflict between the West and Israel, focusing on Jerusalem as the tinderbox for “contemporary messiahs”.