The review process of texts submitted for publication in scientific journals is one of the main ways of evaluating the scientific output of their authors. Any disruptions in this process can have serious and far-reaching consequences, not only in terms of the credibility and integrity of the author themselves, but – most importantly – in terms of the confidence in their achievements. Attempts to distort the review process have so far occurred most often in medical and exact sciences. The case of “The Critique of Law” discussed herein shows that attempts at scientific fraud affect also legal sciences. The purpose of the article is to inform the scientific community worldwide about subsequent attempts of unethical scholarly activities, to describe instances of malpractice, and to point out some of the possible ways to prevent the fraud in question.

The review process of texts submitted for publication in scientific journals is one of the main ways of evaluating the scientific output of their authors. Any disruptions in this process can have serious and far-reaching consequences, not only in terms of the credibility and integrity of the author themselves, but – most importantly – in terms of the confidence in their achievements. Attempts to distort the review process have so far occurred most often in medical and exact sciences. The case of „The Critique of Law” discussed herein shows that attempts at scientific fraud affect also legal sciences. The purpose of the article is to inform the scientific community worldwide about subsequent attempts of unethical scholarly activities, to describe instances of malpractice, and to point out some of the possible ways to
prevent the fraud in question.

The Polish Personal Income Tax Law provides for a relatively extensive group of tax exemptions related to various benefits offered to doctoral students and academics. It also includes an exemption for scholarships and assistance grants referred to in Law 2.0, as well as scholarships received under programmes or projects aimed at implementing the current state scientific policy. The rule adopted is that the exemption applies as long as the rules for granting the scholarships and grants in question them have been approved by the minister in charge of higher education and science. The research objective adopted in the gloss is to verify the jurisprudential practice regarding the issue of the tax exemption in question. The analysis and evaluation have been performed also in the context of the guidelines and ideas behind the reform of higher education and science (regulations of the so-called Law 2.0). This gloss is a critical commentary. It makes use of dogmatic-legal and normative analysis.

This article provides only a small contribution to the inevitable scholarly discussion on whether excluding the primacy of the literal rule in favour of the priority of a pro-EU teleological interpretation in the judicial and administrative applications of Polish tax law is really reasonable. Firstly, this article sets out to discuss the stages of the transposition of the concept of a household from EU legislation into the provisions of the Excise Duty Act. Secondly, it presents the evolution in the lines of the interpretation of this term as used by tax authorities and national courts. Thirdly, it demonstrates the negative legal and fiscal consequences that are caused in practice by the definition of this term as framed by the Polish legislator.

In our presentation, we review the procedure and method of meeting the electoral bodies of different (mainly European) countries – in particular the issue of ensuring the publicity and extent to which they can operate online. In addition, we examine in more detail the practice and procedural method of the Hungarian electoral bodies, in particular the National Election Commission. Based on the above, we also outline the possibilities for the further development of Hungarian practice. Our main findings: it is clear that although online meetings of election commissions are still used only in several countries, but the COVID-19 epidemic has highlighted the need to open up to the online space not only in the election process but also in the practice of individual election bodies. The regulations of the Hungarian National Election Commission define the rules of online meetings in great detail. This makes Hungary one of the few EU countries where it is possible to meet by videoconference. In our opinion, this direction will become decisive in the EU countries in the coming years. Moreover, we do not consider it inconceivable that the entire electoral process (including remote voting) should be digitised, as is the case in Estonia. However, this still requires many steps to be taken by individual countries to increase voter confidence in digitisation. For now, however, we have to be satisfied with one of the positive benefits of the COVID-19 epidemic: the ability to online meetings of election commissions.

The purpose of this publication is to show and analyse the issue of transsexual people who feel the need to reassign their sex assigned at birth and their biological sex due to a gender identity disorder. The paper is a polemic against the views presented in the case-law practice, suggesting the uniform and statutory regulation of transgender people’s situation in Polish law, drawing from the achievement of the ‘Principles’ written in Yogyakarta. One of the main postulates resulting from this publication concerns the regulation of the conditions and procedure of the legal sex transition that guarantee transsexual people the enjoyment of their fundamental rights and freedoms on equal terms with other members of society. The article is supposed to contribute to combating discrimination and increasing awareness in the area of transsexuality which is viewed stereotypically and is unknown to most people, with the exception of a small group of experts who fight against exclusion that conditioned by a different gender identity.

The aim of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the legislation on the fight against illegal employment both at the supranational level of the European Union and at the EU Member States level, inter alia, in Poland, France, and Germany. The leading method in the study was the comparative-legal method. It helped to compare the peculiarities of the practice of European countries in the field of combating illegal employment in the EU Member States, as well as to identify how this issue is regulated. The results demonstrate that illegal employment destroys legal jobs, leads to the increase in unemployment and deprives the state of revenues such as tax and social contributions, etc. That is why international declarations and conventions should guarantee the right to work in the European Union for the citizens of non-European states.

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.

So far, numerous influential studies have been made in reference to the phenomenon of ‘good governance’ in formal and legal, and economic terms or in terms of political science. The purpose of this paper is to present an interdisciplinary approach that attempts to integrate legal, economic and political sciences to analyse especially the legal and economic contexts of the indicated concept. The task of the article is to show the co-dependency and interactions between ‘good governance’ and the school of law and economy, especially within the phenomenon of supranational institutionalisation whose foundations still include the realisation of the principles of ‘good governance’. Despite the legal and economic themes, the indicated areas also formulate a defined scope of politics that is worth seeing through the prism of the apparatus of political science. The extremely economic approach demands focus on the processes of maximising profits/minimising resources; however, one must not ignore the element of classic politics that refers to disputes about various attitudes and values. The hypothesis of the article is the following statement: the decomposition of the liberal model of law and global economy translates into the phenomenon of the economic downturn of supranational structures, which leads to more primitive forms of domination and subordination in place of current practices whose purpose is to implement the regulations of ‘good governance’.

The purpose of the article is to propose a concept of the collective right to food which may turn out to be essential in fighting hunger and malnutrition on a global scale. International agreements, including Pacts on Human Rights, overlook the rights of indigenous peoples by corresponding to the individualistic, state-centric, consumeristic and commercial vision of the right to food. An approach, which is based on the objectives of critical studies on law, to the official dogma of the right to food (developed within expert and intergovernmental bodies in the form of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) allows for claiming that the dogma is less legitimized than the collective right to food (defined in the Decla-ration of Atitlán) resulting from the indigenous peoples’ practice. This is why, remaining in the sphere of the official, Grotian international legal order, it should be acknowledged that the indigenous peoples’ right to food defined in the article is a part of third-generation rights (next to the second-generation individualistic right to food) while remaining strictly connected to the right to self-determination and the right to development. It is a result of the long-term practice of those peoples. The above-mentioned proposal of the third-generation right to food has not been applied to the legal doctrine so far. Its value is the opportunity to develop and study the concept of food sovereignty that allows one to more effectively combat hunger and malnutrition on a global scale as compared to the previous actions of international communities.

The present article addresses the issue, whether in international law there exists pre-contractual responsibility (culpa in contrahendo). If such a responsibility indeed exists it will play a significant role not only in State-to-State relations, but also in the relations between States and private investors, given the fact that currently, on the virtue of investment treaties, private entities have rights to lodge claims against states before arbitration tribunals, which employ international law in their judgements. Hence, determination whether responsibility for culpa in contrahendo exists in international law, will allow to establish, whether private entities may base the claims on that ground, and if such course of action is advantageous. The proposed analysis will be based upon sources of international law, such as treaties, custom, general principles of law, as well as judicial and scientific authorities – and additionally also relevant practice in chosen States’ legal practice.

The paper discusses the procedure before the guardianship court regarding granting so-called surrogate approval of providing a healthcare service, particularly vaccination against COVID-19, to persons who are unable to make a conscious decision in this regard for objective reasons – health or age. The currently applicable provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure and the Act on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Professions were analysed. Due to lack of any separate procedural regulation of procedure in this regard, special attention was paid to the right court representation of the person whom the approval concerns and to the issue of gathering and assessing evidence. The authors’ goal was in particular to evaluate legal loopholes noticed in practice and to indicate possible practical and procedural solutions, which is specifically essential in the current epidemiological situation, as nowadays these types of proceedings constitute a significant percentage of cases examined by courts.

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.

This paper presents the issue of a lawyer’s integrity from the perspective of the assumptions underlying the original concept of a holistic approach to law and legal practice. In the course of the discussion, the basic principles of legal holism, the assumed understanding of lawyer’s integrity and their personal qualities forming the lawyer personality, and the problem of integrity in the context of the formula (model) shaping the lawyer-client relationship will be introduced. Legal holism recognises a lawyer’s self-knowledge, their conscious choice of professional role(s), the ways in which they are performed and the formula for working with clients and parties to disputes as crucial issues for the practice of law. It emphasises their complexity and possible impact on the postulated observance by a lawyer of the integrity of attitudes and actions in professional and private life. The author represents a research approach related to the concept of ontological and methodological multidimensionality of legal phenomena and the postulate of the so-called external integration of jurisprudence with the achievements of other sciences, including branches other than social (e.g. psychology or sociology).

The main purpose of the presented research project is to prepare an initiating answer to the present state of judicial integrity recognised as the top of legal professions and the legal system as such. The method comes mainly from the Oxford analytical jurisprudence, nevertheless, the historical and interdisciplinary approaches, as well as a legal practice, were taken seriously into consideration. The main theses and their scientific standpoints are: (i) at present, we are facing the disintegration of integrity; (ii) one of the sources of it lies in the very grounds of major jurisprudential terms, understood as parts of the Hartian internal point of view and that there are fundamental analytical paradoxes of integrity, generating practical dysfunctionalities; (iii) it is possible to solve main problems through a completely new approach: an ontological turn in the philosophy of law causing the idea of law as a concept and a new concept of integrity, namely ‘negative integrity’. It could be easily and effectively treated as practical support for firstly improving judicial integrity and secondly legal practice in general.

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

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.

There are many theoretical and legal issues related to the operation of private military companies (PMCs) and their presence (location of their registered offices) in democratic states under the rule of law that remain unsolved in legal doctrine and practice. There are no clear rules at an international level that define the status of these agencies and the way in which they carry out their duties. There is also the problem of distinguishing between contractors and mercenaries. PMCs, like private security companies (PSCs), are used by states in exchange for large government contracts in so-called „unwanted wars”, where it is cheaper to conduct operations without parliamentary oversight, media publicity, or social objections to sending military contingents abroad. Sometimes it is a question of providing discrete military aid to „friend countries”. PMCs are politically safer in such a situation. Not only states but also non-governmental organizations, private companies,
rebel groups and declining dictators hire these private armies. The problem requires urgent multifaceted reflection leading to changes in legal doctrine and legislative action, both at the international level and in individual countries.