Trade secret constitutes one of the most common forms of intellectual property protection, comprising a special category of confidential information of vital impor-tance for achieving competitive advantage, including of economic nature, and the undisturbed operation of an enterprise.
It is the purpose of this paper is to specify the European and domestic legal conditions for the protection of trade secrets, the conditions and consequences of violating trade secrets (in the legal environment as of 28 February 2023), and to indi-cate the policy of protecting trade secrets.
For the purposes of achieving the presented goal, the thesis is assumed that the subject of protection, which is a trade secret, is consistent with the need to apply in practice the public law solutions adopted in this area, provided that the entrepreneur is able to use the tools available in this area. The implementation of the assumptions will also be possible by verifying the subject of protection in the analysis of selected judgments on various controversial issues and criminal acts in connection with the violation of trade secrets, as well as by verifying the legal tools provided for in the Act of April 16, 1993 on combating unfair competition.

The study based on archival, published historical documents and other available information sources highlights the activity of sickness funds that functioned in Ukraine on the territory of modern Prykarpattia during the period of Polish rule in 1919–1939 (the Second Polish Republic, in Polish: II Rzeczpospolita Polska) as a prototype of health insurance. The analysis of these documents allows to deter-mine the peculiarities of the activity of these institutions in relations with society and the state, methods of financing, rights and obligations of the members of these organizations, specific features of the decision-making management, insurance cases and ways of compensation. The retrospective approach used in this study makes it possible to recreate the picture of the past in the field of health care in general and health insurance in particular, even with the lack of historical and legal sources of a certain historical period. Seeing the present through a peculiar prism of the past helps to dive into the inner life of the society with all its manife-stations and ideas contributing to better understanding of modern social processes. In other words, the longer you look back, the further you see ahead.

The article is focused on financing of Polish support to displaced persons arriving to Poland from Ukraine after 24 February 2022, so after the Russian invasion on Ukraine. Poland has introduced a new statute and has amended general rules applicable in mass influx situations. That area of law is regulated also by Directive 2001/55/EC which establishes a minimum standard of displaced persons’ rights, leaving their financing primarily to national budgets. The Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/382 is the first law which has activated the Directive. Under the amended Polish law, support to persons from Ukraine is subject to the avail-ability of national financial resources, which contradicts the principles of public finance law because Polish law does not establish predictable sources of financing, and spendings are not controlled by the Polish Parliament.

The patents regime in healthcare sector and its tussle with right to public health is a long controversial saga. The crux of matter which is debated focuses upon providing patent rights that reduces the accessibility of cost-effective healthcare services, particularly in developing country. The counter point to this has remained that providing patent allows nurturing of research and development in the healthcare sector, which promotes the healthcare industry to take initiatives to tackle various health related problems and provide better treatment.
According to the rival opinions presented in the aforesaid, the centre of the issue is health, therefore it is necessary to discuss the corresponding rights of citizens and duties of the government to make healthcare industry favourable.

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.

The article examines the application of the principle of the active role of the court in the administrative proceedings of the Republic of Kazakhstan and foreign countries. The attention is paid mainly to the identification of the main function and the system of application of this principle. The scientific novelty lies in the study of important subordinate guiding principles, the influence of which is decisive when applying the principle of the active role of the court in the administrative proceedings of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The authors conclude that the judge should apply the principle of the active role of the court in order to have a fair trial within a reasonable time.

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 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 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.

Transfering duties customarly designated for public entities to private entities is a fact. It is connected with delegating on them a part of legal power in creating rights and duties of individuals. A vast majority of their domineeringly will is commonly stated on the grounds of by-laws. By-laws have different form, content and even different function. At the same time, depending only on the will of private entities several times interfere in the freedom and the rights of their addressee. That is why scientifical research concerning their essence and content, including a progressive and complicated process of “privatisation of public safety” seem to be more and more important. On the ground of this research, several by–laws laid down by private entities are being analysed.

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.

These standards were introduced at four international organizations and supranational associations: 1) the European Union; 2) the Council of Europe; 3) the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; 4) the Commonwealth of Independent States. The article states that the key reason for the introduction of standards for the regulation of lobbying at the international level was considerable corruption in the adoption of legal acts. It is concluded that latent and unregulated lobbying can seriously undermine public confidence in the institution of government, especially in the countries of the so-called “new democracy”. International regulation of lobbying takes the form of resolutions, procedural rules, guidelines, recommendations and model legislation. Notably, the first steps towards international regulation of lobbying were taken by the institutions of the European Union. Today EU standards for the regulation of lobbying is based on a series of articles set out in the EU-founding treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. EU standards for the regulation of lobbying influence not only the EU Member States, but it also extends to EU Partner Countries. Significant steps in the implementation of international standards for the regulation of lobbying are being constantly carried out by the Council of Europe. The establishment of CE standards for the regulation of lobbying is reflected in the activity of statutory bodies of the Council of Europe and its semi-autonomous bodies. In recent years a lot of work on the strengthening of international standards for lobbying regulation has been done by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. To help address the concerns with transparency and integrity in lobbying, the OECD Member Countries adopted in 2010 a Recommendation on Principles for Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying as guidance to decision-makers on how to promote good governance in lobbying. Another international organization, which began to regulate actively the practice of lobbying is the Commonwealth of Independent States. In order to intensify the work concerning legislative regulation of lobbying in the member countries of the CIS, at the XXII Plenary Session of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS member states the Resolution No. 22-16 of November 15, 2003 was adopted, which approved a model law “On regulation of lobbying activity in state authorities”.

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.

The aim of the article is to offer an insight into the problem of observance of human rights at sea in situations of fighting piracy and armed robbery against vessels. The analysis has been conducted using the example of the situation in the Gulf of Aden and piracy off the coast of Somalia. The authors have analysed international legal regulations in the field of the law of the sea and human rights, with a particular consideration of the observance and protection of human rights depending on the maritime zone (territorial sea, contiguous zone, and high sea) where these rights are violated. The subject matter of the observance of human rights in the context of maritime areas has not been so far a matter addressed in Polish-language scientific publications. Yet, given its special social and legal significance (e.g. in the light of the migration crisis in the Mediterranean Sea basin), it seems necessary to bring it to attention. In the conclusions, the authors argue that the adopted regulations affecting piracy and acts of armed robbery against vessels provide only a framework and that it is crucial to establish specific procedures to deal with pirates at an international level (considering the international standards of protection of human rights).

In the judgement C-403/16 Soufiane El Hassani v. Polish Foreign Office European Court of Justice noticed that provisions of internal law cannot limit the right to judical-review established in art. 32 par. 3 of Visa Code. The regulation must be interpreted in context of EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Meanwhile the sentence was answer to question of Polish Supreme Administrative Court and it arose under Administrative Courts Proceedings Act which prohibits performing judicial review over visa decisions. The aim of the paper is to explain that judicial review at those issues may be effectively performed by common courts, without damaging visa-applicants rights. The possibility comes from wide definition of civil case in code of civil procedure and attribution of common courts in some public administration cases.