The issue of law-making is a key issue in a democratic state ruled by law. Particularly interesting seems to be the issue of enacting electoral law, which is exposed to the phenomenon of instrumentalisation. The aim of this article is to analyse the institution of legislative silence in Polish electoral law and to try to find an answer to the question whether the application of this solution may be an effective tool limiting the political influence on the shape of electoral law. In order to find the above questions, it was necessary to carry out a detailed analysis of this solution, primarily on the basis of the jurisprudence of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and international law standards specified in the documents of the Venice Commission. The work uses the formal and legal method and the literature and jurisprudence are reviewed.

It is the intention of the author of this article to present the theoretical and legal views of Sigmund Freud and Emil Durkheim and to place them in the context of classical texts on political-legal theory. Both thinkers, rather associated with sociology or psychology than with law, treated law as one of the most important reference points in their social concepts. In both cases, we are dealing with the treatment of the social order as transcendent to the empirical individual, and at the same time created by society. At the same time, the law is supposed to impede the emancipation of the individual and to allow the individual to have a real influence on the creation of power structures. At the same time, despite numerous analyses of the theoretical-legal views of these thinkers in the European scientific literature, this is the first such analysis in Polish. In addition to presenting Freud’s and Durkheim’s views, it opens up the possibility of not only situating them among political-legal theories, but also points to perspectives on the operationalisation of these theories – as well as their possible social implications. To this end, the following article juxtaposes their theories with the traditions of legal positivism as represented by Hans Kelsen and Herbert L.A. Hart – two authors who were inspired by Freud and Durkheim respectively.

The aim of the article is to characterise selected tax principles included in the Polish financial law literature. Legal academics and commentators widely emphasise that these principles are extremely crucial for the tax system. They express the postulates to which a properly designed tax, as well as a rational tax system, should correspond. In view of the fact that the academic discourse has been emphasising for many years that tax law is of low quality and thus difficult and costly to apply, as well as the low assessment of tax regulations enacted as part of the so-called Polish Deal, it was considered appropriate to remind the significance of the most important of these models, the content of which was expressed as tax principles.

Using a surname as a trademark or part of a trademark has been the subject of numerous case-laws and has been widely discussed in the literature. However, it seems that after the Messi case (cases C-449/18 P and C-474/18 P), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) seems to have departed from their previous approach where it was held that surnames in trademarks should be treated as normal signs. In the Messi case, the CJEU, however, ruled that the reputation of Messi – an internationally famous football player – is so well known that an average consumer, seeing the ‘MESSI’ mark placed on clothing, gymnastic or sporting articles and protective equipment, will establish a link between the mark and the sports personality, despite the similarity between the ‘MESSI’ mark to the ‘MASSI’ brand name, a previously registered trademark. However, this ruling gives rise to the following questions, which this article seeks to address:
- How can one prove that someone’s surname is globally recognised?
- Why did the CJEU decide that Messi is better known than, for instance, Picasso who was the subject of the previous case? Who else can be as famous as Messi if Picasso was held not to be?
- Has Messi changed the CJEU’s approach and opened the floodgates to expand trademark protection for an unlimited number of trademarks?

This article attempts to answer these questions.

The resolution of the municipal council on establishing the rules and conditions of situating the objects of street furniture, advertising boards and devices, gates, their dimensions, quality standards and kinds of materials, which they can be made of (it is called thelandscape resolution’ and also the ‘advertising resolution’ in literature), is a legal tool that serves landscape protection. However justified and necessary it is, the legal definition of terms that are basic for its content is accompanied by certain structural doubts that translate into the practice of applying law. In this article, the authors identify those flaws of the applicable regulation and make suggestions of their own legal solutions, especially introducing the legal definition of the term ‘advertising medium’ (replacing the current ‘advertising board’ and ‘advertising device’), as well as the definitions of individual types of media, to the legal order. The dogmatic and legal analysis is concluded with a draft of the appropriate legal provision.

The interest in the profession of a mediator increased with the popularisation of mediation in Poland. The tendency was supported by the legislator’s liberal defini-tion of requirements for performing this professional function. In the article, we raise issues related to the principles of entering in the register of permanent mediators in Poland. We present the currently applicable legal regulations and we analyse them, focusing on the requirement to have knowledge of mediation and to be skilled in it. This requirement is interpreted in different ways by individual authorities that enter candidates’ names in the register of permanent mediators (presidents of district courts), and its interpretation is also evaluated differently in both Polish literature and case law.
The purpose of the article is to show the areas of legal regulations that require changes and unification, on the basis of analysing the results of statistical research conducted by the authors. It is significant particularly from the perspective of the ongoing discussion on the professionalisation of mediators in Poland, especially in the context of the planned changes and the introduction of the National Register of Mediators. The accomplishment of the task undertaken by the authors is primarily served by the formal and dogmatic method as well as the comparative method used in the statistical research. The purpose of that method was to show discrepancies in interpreting the regulations concerning mediation.

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 paper is to analyse issues related to personal data processing
within the framework of co-operation between the employer and trade unions in
individual employment matters. The issues of personal data processing in collective relations are becoming more important especially due to lack of detailed legislative solutions, which results in the necessity to apply the general provisions of the GDPR as well as the latest changes to the Trade Unions Act. Pursuant to these changes, not only employees, but also persons performing gainful employment who are not employees can create and join trade unions as well as can be defended by the trade unions. The legislator frequently finds it difficult to adjust the protection of personal data to the specificity of collective relations, and the way in which the relationship between employers and trade unions is shaped in individual employment matters raises many questions in the context of personal data protection. The issue in question has not been explored in depth in the professional labour law literature. Thus, research on this subject is novel and justified from both the theoretical and the practical perspective. In the article, the formal-dogmatic method of research was used.

The aim of the research was to identify conditions and forms of international and cross-border cooperation of Polish higher education institutions (HEIs). In order to achieve the goal, the formal-dogmatic method was applied, analyzing the literature on the subject, the law (mainly Polish law), as well as various statements and press releases. A request for public information was also used. The article was divided into three parts. The first one concerns the conditions of international and cross-border cooperation of Polish HEIs. The next part covers the forms of cooperation identified by the author, and the last one refers to the formula of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation as a form of international and cross-border cooperation of HEIs. The results of the research show that international and cross--border cooperation of Polish HEIs is based primarily on national law, which, however, is characterized by high variability, which does not favour building stable relations. The cooperation of HEIs takes various forms, from non-institutionalised to quasi institutionalised and institutionalised. Polish HEIs are trying to join the internationalization process, and the availability of external funding is conducive to gradual institutionalization of international and cross-border cooperation
of HEIs. There is a scarcity of studies on the subject, therefore the article may be
of great cognitive value to legal science, especially in Poland, but also abroad (for
scholars conducting comparative research).

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.

The purpose of the article is to characterise the main reasons and consequences of the division of sub-central government tasks between its own tasks and commissioned tasks and the indication of some controversy related to this issue. The author analyses in particular certain types of local government tasks (concerning the most important spheres of local activity, such as welfare, education, or health) and its qualification to the category of „its own tasks”. The essential conclusion of the paper is that in many cases the qualification of specific public affairs to one or the other category of self-government tasks is determined not so much by its specific „nature”, but primarily by its fiscal consequences, including the ability to pass the obligation of its financing to local authorities. The research methodology used in the article is based on a critical analysis of the legal acts as well as literature on public finance and financial and administrative law.

The paper explores the relation between law and literature. In the first part, based on „Bleak House” by Charles Dickens, the shortcomings of the perspective „law and literature” are indicated. The author not only criticizes the idea of treating a writer as if he were a legal historian, but she also calls into question a broader vision of literature as a mirror of social and legal reality. In the second part of the paper, still in reference to „Bleak House” (Court of Chancery, lawyers, philanthropy), a different concept of fiction within legal education is developed. Literary artistry (the use of metaphors, personifications, caricatures) and not its similarity to reality, is seen as a valuable instrument in the cultivation the moral imagination and empathy of the lawyers.

The subject of this article covers the relationship between literature and the law. An example of this text is The Code of Nature from 1755. Morelly’s composition is beauty, simplicity and sincerity. Morelly, and before him Rousseau, are the eulogists of Nature, exhorting us to live according to her eternal, immutable and perfect laws. On the other hand, he stays true to Cartesian tradition cult of reason and power. The Code of Nature shall be treated as the enlightenment utopia of a communist State. Life in accordance with Nature is a happy life To achieve this, the abolition of private property in social relations is required. The Code of Nature is seen as a harbinger of coming processes of codification and consolidation of the idea of modern constitutionalism.

Interpretation is one of key notions on the convergence axis of law and literature. Both lawyers and literary scholars during their practices focus on interpreting complex language texts, establishing the meaning of expressions, reconstructing the sender’s intention, penetrating the influence of the text on the recipient, i.e. questions which turn out to be fundamental in both legal as well as literary texts. Analysis of the legal and literary interpretations allows us to identify differences as well as certain analogies between these two spheres of activity. They may be analysed through referring to the specificity of the entities participating in the interpretative practice, which are the sender and the recipient. The essential difference between interpretation in law and interpretation in literature consists of the rule that a legal text should be interpreted in the way that produces an unequivocal result. On the other hand, in the case of literary interpretation, it is difficult to reach a precise or unequivocal effect of reading the sense. Moreover, in literary interpretation it is not required. In a legal text and in a literary text the author-sender’s intention plays an important role. However, in the case of literary interpretation it is possible to apply a more flexible approach to the reconstruction of the author’s intention than in legal interpretation, where it is necessary to take into consideration rules and objectives of law only. The separateness of legal interpretation is justified foremost by the fact that it is specific purpose-oriented, which is establishing the meaning of the substance of applicable law.

The objective of this article is to present a new approach to legal education, which laid the foundations of the law curriculum at the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Zielona Góra. The concepts of legal education in Polish literature are presented in the first section of the article. The second part presents doubts connected to the prevailing model of teaching law at Polish universities – general studies (theoretical education). The next section presents the concept of teaching law at the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Zielona Góra, based on the concept of practical studies. There are presented solutions to improve the practical education and professional prospects of students. The implementation of this concept is provided in the fourth section. There are presented effects of certain solutions (presented in the third section) after the end of the first cycle of law studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Zielona Góra.

The paper deals with the issue of the legal consequences of a false statement given
by the accused in criminal proceedings. The author presents positions expressed in this matter in the literature and jurisprudence. He then presents and justifies his own view. He believes that a false statement by the accused is not criminally prohibited, because there is no such type of offence. However, such behaviour is unlawful. It is true that this is a kind of defence, but it is not the execution of the right to defence. Nevertheless, it does not appear that the false statement could result in an intensification of the penalty or in the use of a preventive measure in the proceedings (for example temporary custody). It is undoubted, however, that false statement resulting in defamation or false accusation may lead to criminal liability.