This article discusses the independent state legislature theory, which has been the subject of interest of an ever-growing group of American constitutionalists in recent years. This theory deals primarily with state legislatures’ power – derived directly from the U.S. Constitution – to regulate federal elections. According to its underlying premises, this fact results in the absence of any tools to control the law enacted in this area as to its compliance with a given state’s constitution. Neither the electoral administration nor the state courts can interfere with these laws. They would therefore be subject to federal courts’ review only. However, the Supreme Court, in applying the political questions doctrine, has excluded many election law matters – other than those concerning funding – from its jurisdiction. As a result, such an important part of state law – one concerning fundamental political rights – would remain without any supervision inherent in modern democracies.

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.

Constitutional crisis confronts legal practice with philosophical problems that normally may seem abstract or even purely academic. Among those, there is a question of material (content-dependent) criteria of legal validity, namely whether legal norms may actually have any content and remain binding elements of the law. It becomes palpable due to the legislative initiatives to decriminalize some violations of law committed by governmental officials. Such regulation deserves discussion in the light of theoretical conceptions of the claim to correctness (justice, righteousness) as a necessary feature of each act of enacting or applying the law. Arguably, even weaker conception of such claim, relying on the correctness relative to the public morality reflected in the fundamental values and principles of the positive law, is sufficient to challenge the potential presumption of validity of such decriminalizing provisions entailed by their possible formally accurate enactment.

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.

The aim of the article is to offer proposals for reforming and speeding up health care in Ukraine, in particular by comparing the current system with a decentralized system. The methodology of this research follows basic social science methods (formal analysis, inductive method, deductive method, analogy, synthesis, etc.). With these methods, we address the issues of the health care reform in Ukraine. The article explores the issue of improving the health care in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government is carrying out two important reforms – a health care reform and a decentralization reform that includes changes in the municipal government. These two reforms have a huge potential for improving Ukraine’s health care system. Such potential remains largely untapped.

The purpose of the article is the legal and comparative analysis of how the principle of the proportional restriction of the rights and freedoms of an individual is understood by the Constitutional Tribunal and the European Court of Human Rights. The author made a comparative profile of selected statements of the indicated judicial bodies, which refer to the essence, theoretical basis, structure and the practical application of the concept of proportionality, which allowed for distinguishing the basic similarities and differences between how proportionality is perceived by the CT and how it is viewed by the ECHR. The main thesis of the paper assumes that the most important and the most far-reaching differences concern the proportionality test structure as presented by both judicial bodies, as well as some practical aspects of the application of the test in the circumstances of specific actual states, however, the essence itself and its axiological basis remain similar in both cases.

The purpose of the article is analyse how essential the issue of personal data protection is in the procedure of leading a collective dispute. In order to make some findings in this matter, the dogmatic and legal method was primarily used and the provisions of the Act on Resolving Collective Disputes and the GDPR were analysed in the first place. The findings made lead to the conclusion that despite the fact that the dispute itself is collective, both parties (both the trade union and the employer) process a range of personal data during the dispute. Due to the specifics of the procedure and the fact that the Act was essentially created before the GDPR came into force and it was not amended for the inclusion of broadly understood requirements for the correctness of the processing of personal data, it is necessary to rely on general principles resulting from the GDPR, and a certain indicator of it may be opinions issued by the PDPO.
The issue raised in this paper has so far been included in certain statements from the doctrine, but its practical significance and importance for social partners who execute their constitutional right to lead collective disputes fully justify further research in this direction as well as the fact of findings resulting from that research reaching various target groups (apart from the above-mentioned social partners, representatives of the judicature and science should also be reached).

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 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 analyse the relationship between judicial integrity and the institution of votum separatum. The first part concerns the relationship between the concepts of a definite approach to a professional role performed and the institution of votum separatum. The second part of the paper attempts to answer the question whether care about maintaining integrity can actually be attributed to dissents submitted to the Constitutional Tribunal. The article attempts to justify a conclusion that judicial integrity does not constitute the main function of dissents that are actually submitted to the Tribunal. The main obstacle is interpreting cases in which such dissents were submitted, as axiological opposites. Thus, what can be attributable to dissents is definite values, for the protection of which these dissents are submitted, such as e.g. individual rights or care about the public interest. However, the relation of these values to judicial integrity is not obvious. This results from the fact that axiological characteristics attributed to the same judge’s dissents are subject to change. That change results not from the inconsistency of beliefs, but from the characteristics of the case examined.

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.

Abstract The question of compensation of Polish citizens for their property left beyond the Bug river after the population exchanges is among the most complex social, economical and legal issues resulting from the World War II to be solved by the Polish State. Although more than 70 years have passed since this issue has arisen, it remains the subject of numerous national and European court rulings and legislative actions; the significance of the legal solution of the described issue is bolstered by the fact that it is being treated as a “proving ground” for the broader question of reprivatisation. This article focuses on the current Act of 8 July 2005 which was aimed at providing a final solution for settling the claims. However, during the last few years of this act in operation numerous questions and disputes have arisen leading to more than 600 administrative court and Constitutional Tribunal rulings. The subject of this article will be focused on current controversies regarding the subject including the requirements of residence on the former territory of Poland on 1 September 1939, exclusion of non- Polish nationals who are heirs to property owners from entitlement to compensation and legal consequences of nationalization by Soviet authorities during World War II and its aftermath.

This article deals with the specialised organ of constitutional review – the Constitutional Court of Georgia and analyses the possibility of granting the Constitutional Court the right to consider and adjudicate upon the decisions of common (ordinary) courts. The Constitutional Court mainly carries out repressive and abstract control. In general, it considers the constitutionality of normative acts. Most of the constitutional claims apply to compliance of the normative acts with the second chapter of the Constitution of Georgia, which guarantees basic rights and the freedom of individuals. Recently, the Public Defender of Georgia launched an initiative to add to the power of the Constitutional Court to consider the constitutionality of the decisions of the courts of last resort. Granting the Constitutional Court this authority is associated with many positive factors. First of all, the Constitutional Court will become the court of last resort in terms of the European Convention on Human Rights and thus, the number of applications against Georgia will be reduced. It will require less financial resources than in case of making application to the European Court of Human rights and the final decision will be adopted in shorter terms. Consequently, the new authority of the Constitutional Court can become a more effective human rights protection mechanism. The new authority may interfere with the common court’s competence; however, finally, the initiative should be positively evaluated.

The paper indicates the most important arguments raised by the participants in the dispute concerning the possibility of control by the administrative courts of decisions of the President of the Republic of Poland on the refusal to appoint a judge and an attempt to make a substantive evaluation of them. In my opinion, the refusal to appoint a judge, as well as refusal to accept the judge’s position under the amended Act on the Supreme Court (SC) should be strictly exceptional and in principle be justified at the constitutional level, which should be seen as the duty of the President to ensure compliance with the Constitution. Both of these resolutions should contain the motives of the President, which would make this act, with all its arbitrariness, more transparent. This is important not only from the point of view of the person concerned, but this also has an important social dimension. The public has the right to know, not only which candidates, who met the requirements for the appointment as a judge and were recommended by the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland (NCJ), were not appointed by the President, but also what reasons were at the heart of such a decision of the Head of State.

The article discusses the issue of the place and presence of women in the public sphere, and tries to answer the question of how these matters are impacted by the institution of the Constitutional Tribunal. Applying the method of discourse analysis, I have examined the Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s decisions and looked into the media discussion, with both revealing dominant trends regarding women’s rights in Polish constitutionalism. Using the category of counterpublics, I also cover emancipation movements important on account of women’s rights and their presence in the public domain. I also address the common myths concerning the Constitutional Tribunal. There are also mentions of room for the materialisation of emancipation processes in Polish constitutionalism.

Social labour inspectorate, as a special form of unionised representation of employees’ interests, has the right to control employers in the field of their compliance with the provisions of the labour law in place. Exercising this controlling function involves the need for a social labour inspector to access the information and docu-ments that may contain personal data of employees. The study advances a thesis that a social labour inspector is an entity processing personal data of employees on behalf of a company trade union organisation – who is the controller of these data, and the grounds for the processing of personal data of employees are the relevant provisions of the GDPR. The theses proposed in the study aim to challenge the Constitutional Tribunal’s standpoint regarding a social labour inspector’s right to obtain personal data. The problems addressed in the study have not been a sub-ject of the existing views of legal academics and commentators, nor have they been covered in the established line of judicial decisions yet.

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.