Since 7th November 2019 most provisions of The Act of 4th July 2019 on Amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure and on Amendments to the Other Acts have been applied. Among many revolutionary changes to the rules on conducting trial proceedings, worth noticing is the content of the Code of Civil Procedure Art. 2711. It concerns the admissibility of evidence that differs from traditional oral form. This paper discusses the practical problems in admissibility and examination of evidence from witness testimony in written form. The issues summoning of the witness, forms, cautions and list of questions that are demanded to be answered in a witness statement are also addressed here. Furthermore, there are proposals of practical arrangements, so this new provision would be applied by court, therefore it would contribute to the efficiency of judicial procedures. This article published in January 2020 is considered to be the preliminary proposal to academic and practical discussion about legitimacy of implementation of described solution and its effective use.

This paper concerns a broader technological revolution which is currently happening all around the world, including Poland, in terms of tax return completion. The paper is divided into parts. The individual parts indicate and describe the current state, change-causing factors as well as the changes progressing currently both in Poland and the world. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and describe the possibilities resulting from the automation of the tax returns completion process and to determine the directions of potential changes in the future.

100 years of constitutionalism of two neighbouring European states – Czechoslovakia, later becoming the Czech Republic, and Poland – encourage a reflection on the paths of development of their respective constitutions, on the historical stages and successive
olitical transformations, not just in the context of individual constitutionalisms of each of those states but with an emphasis on the similarities and differences in this domain. And this is what this study focuses on. Starting from the common fate of rebirth of both states after WWI through the inter-war efforts to establish democratic constitutional systems and the obstacles found on the way, followed by the post-WWII period of real socialism ending with the era of transformations and stabilisation as democratic states of law. The text explores all the similarities found in both general aspects – like the references to the European tradition of parliamentary governance – and in certain specific solutions – like the differences in the concept of the two-chamber parliament. But there are also situations occurring in only one of the states, e.g. the federalisation of Czechoslovakia, the emergence of two separate states of the Czechs and Slovaks, or the differences in the course and sequence of events of democratic transformations in each of the states in the 1980s, which brings us to the conclusion that despite all the possible differences, the two constitutional systems have actually been very similar to each other.

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.

100 years of constitutionalism of two neighbouring European states – Czechoslovakia, later becoming the Czech Republic, and Poland – encourage a reflection on the paths of development of their respective constitutions, on the historical stages and successive political transformations, not just in the context of individual constitutionalisms of each of those states but with an emphasis on the similarities and differences in this domain. And this is what this study focuses on. Starting from the common fate of rebirth of both states after WWI through the inter-war efforts to establish democratic constitutional systems and the obstacles found on the way, followed by the post-WWII period of real socialism ending with the era of transformations and stabilisation as democratic states of law. The text explores all the similarities found in both general aspects – like the references to the European tradition of parliamentary governance – and in certain specific solutions – like the differences in the concept of the two-chamber parliament. But there are also situations occurring in only one of the states, e.g. the federalisation of Czechoslovakia, the emergence of two separate states of the Czechs and Slovaks, or the differences in the course and sequence of events of democratic transformations in each of the states in the 1980s (martial law in Poland and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia), which brings us to the conclusion that despite all the possible differences, the two constitutional systems have actually been very similar to each other.

The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was established in 1848, during the heated months of the revolutions of the time and “the Spring of Nations.” Starting 1869, the ministry was called the Imperial and Royal Ministry of the Empire and Foreign Affairs. In line with the conservative character of the monarchy, most of its workforce was still drawn from the environment of aristocracy and gentry, and the system was organised in a way to ensure that the staff was suitably trained. The main institution responsible for the education of professionals was the Oriental Academy established in 1754. In 1898 the Oriental Academy was transformed into the Imperial and Royal Consular Academy. Despite regular reorganisations, the Vienna Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintained a relatively stable internal structure, whose individual components were later implemented by a number of successor states. The central administration was divided into four sections, or departments. At the ambassador level, the Habsburg Empire had representations in the German Empire, France, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Turkey, and at the Holy See that year (1883). The other diplomatic missions were headed by legates and appointed ministers. Two bodies had a significant impact on the monarchy’s foreign policy decision- -making: the Joint Council of Ministers and the Military-Political Conference.

This paper concerns a broader technological revolution which is currently happening all around the world, including Poland, in terms of tax return completion. The paper is divided into parts. The individual parts indicate and describe the current state, change-causing factors as well as the changes progressing currently both in Poland and the world. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and describe the possibilities resulting from the automation of the tax returns completion process and to determine the directions of potential changes in the future.

The subject of the work is an attempt to analyse the notion of dignity in legal sciences, especially in legal theory and philosophy of law. The author distinguishes autonomous and heteronomous version of the notion in question. The first way of conceiving human dignity, assumes that dignity, i.e. the worth of human life, is fully independent of social conditions in which people live their lives. This way of conceiving dignity epitomises Kant’s philosophy of moral autonomy as immanent trait of every human being. The second way of conceiving human dignity assumes that the worth of human life is fully dependent of social conditions in which people live their lives. Consequently, it is taken for granted that there are social conditions in which people can lose dignity as contingent trait of human being. In this case, in order to get back lost dignity, people ought to change social conditions by way of social revolution. This way of conceiving dignity epitomises Marxist philosophy of alienation. The author tends to point out, that a different way of conceiving dignity is followed by serious legal consequences.

The 1917 Russian Revolution was one of the central events of the 20th century, resulting in a great deal of novel developments not only in terms of ideology and socio--economics, but also in the field of state-building. Very innovative was the Bolshevik state-building. Both in terms of power and administration and in terms of the identity of the state, the Bolsheviks were thinking in terms of a completely new and novel concept of the state. The camp of the opponents of the Bolsheviks was heterogeneous. They ranged from the hardest Russian etatists to anarchists of various bents kinds As a result, the White movement’s ideology was strongly reflective (reactive) in its character. The majority of White leaders saw their own system as a military dictatorship restoring order. Officially, the generals claimed that their role was temporary, to be maintained only until the rule of law and the unity of the state are restored in Russia. It was, in fact, one of their paramount objectives to restore a “unified and indivisible” Russia. Although the factual existence of a military dictatorship did not mean that representative bodies in various forms and with various competencies did not exist at all, those bodies could never be equal partners of the leading generals. They were more akin to consulting bodies. Instead, amid the terror and the chaos of the Civil War, the ideology of ‘the strong hand’ and ‘effective, stable power’, without any additional adjectives became increasingly important in the ideology of the White movement.