Since 1 December 2021, the rule applicable in bankruptcy proceedings has been that all pleadings and documents are filed exclusively via the IT system supporting court proceedings using the forms available in this system. An exception to this rule is inter alia a natural person’s right to file a request to declare personal bankruptcy and all pleadings and documents without using the system. The publication analyses whether this entitlement is granted to a natural person only in bankruptcy proceedings or in bankruptcy proceedings conducted after the declaration of bankruptcy.

The pandemic has changed the way society functions, affecting the system of justice as well. The need to maintain social distance has accelerated changes in the judi-ciary. Remote hearings have emerged. The article attempts to answer the question of whether the e-hearings currently taking place are held in accordance with the principle of equality in view of the phenomenon of digital exclusion occurring in Polish society. An empirical study of remote hearings conducted by a student research group and the author’s own experience in this field make up the empiri­cal resources documenting the technical issues that occur during remote hearings and problems related to digital exclusion.

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 US 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 democraci

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 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 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 role of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the management of cases and disputes in Nigeria and across the globe cannot be overemphasized. The judicial arm of the government is the arm responsible for interpretation of laws in Nigeria and the judiciary’s role in preserving the rights of citizens across Nigeria also cannot be overemphasized. It ensures that the society is stable in the face of insta-bility and ensures that lawlessness is not maintained. The judiciary ensures that laws made by the legislature are obeyed by ensuring that those who violate the provisions of any established laws are punished. In doing all these, it has been established that the system of administering justice in our courts in Nigeria is extremely slow. Considering the foregoing, alternative dispute resolution as a means of settling disputes has been of tremendous help in easing the hardship of getting cases resolved through the court system. This paper examines ways through which alternative dispute resolution has assisted the Nigerian judicial system and the need to use alternative dispute resolution the more in order to ensure that number of cases handled by courts are drastically reduced. Recommendations are made at the end of the research.

The article is devoted to the study of the correct application of the evaluative concepts contained in the norms of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Attention is drawn to certain difficulties in the application of the evaluative norms in the Convention: despite their objective necessity and usefulness, they create a room for the law enforcement entity’s own discretion up to subjectivism in resolving specific cases; they serve as an objective obstacle to the unification of the case law of the ECtHR and this creates preconditions for unequal implementation of ECtHR judgments in the national legal order; they cause the risk of errors in the application of the provisions of the Convention by the competent authorities of the Contracting States. It is established that the application of legal norms containing evaluative concepts is challenging not only owing to the specific properties of the evaluative concepts themselves, but also due to the peculiarities of adjudication by the ECtHR when applying the evaluative norms. The relevant case law of the ECtHR as well as examples of national legislation are analysed in support of these theoretical conclusions. Since the lack of uniform application of the evaluative norms of the Convention causes divergent use of the ECtHR’s judgments in the domestic judicial system, it is advised to follow a number of rules for reasoning of decisions by the domestic court. These rules will serve as a certain guarantee against ambiguous implementation of ECtHR judgments at the national level.

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 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 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.

Fixed establishment (FE) is one of the institutions of the EU value added tax system; its structure is essential to correctly determine the right tax jurisdiction of an EU Member State for the purpose of VAT settlement in situations of cross-border provision of services. However, the legal structure of a FE adopted by the EU legislator (and, consequently, adapted to national legislation of the Member States) causes uncertainty when it comes to its interpretation. In the absence of unambiguously defined conditions in EU law to consider a specific presence and activity of an enterprise to be a FE, interpretation rules contained in judicial decisions
issued by the Court of Justice of the EU play an important role. Among attempts
made by the CJEU to clarify the ‘blur areas’ resulting from the dynamics of modern
business processes, one of the most interesting ones is the possibility of considering
a subsidiary to be a fixed establishment for a parent company. The purpose of this
paper is to analyse legal and economic factors, the fulfilment of which may constitute a condition for considering a subsidiary to be a fixed establishment for
a parent company, with particular emphasis on the ruling of the Court of Justice
of 7 May 2020 in the Dong Yang case (C-547/18).

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.

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.

The goal of this article is to highlight the role of a school, here understood as an educational facility, during the course of parental rights termination proceedings. There can be no doubt that the process of upbringing, especially the domestic factors and intense stimulus to which the child is subjected translate into patterns of behaviour and the way the child functions at school. Notably, prolonged learn-ing difficulties among children or periods in which the child presents complete disregard for societal norms and a lack of discipline should be a clear signal for the teachers and counsellors to review the family environment of the pupil in question. The article covers data regarding the school’s participation in the parental rights termination proceedings – e.g. opinions and recommendations formulated by the schools, teacher’s testimonies and children scorecards which reflect the educational progress of the child. The materials used include source materials (acts and ordinances, written opinions, Supreme and common court rulings), results of own research – casefile review based on a targeted casefile research questionnaire.