The subject matter of this paper is the analysis of the phenomenon of subordination
as a manifestation of the relationships between political authority and society and of the phenomenon of equality as an inherent right of individuals. The author has made an attempt to examine the mutual relationships between the two phenomena, especially from the perspective of the impact on the establishment of relationships between political authority and society.

The article presents the problem related to the manner of defining a new psychoactive substance. The definition, partly contained in the provisions of the Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction of 2005, as regards the specification of the type of offense, refers to sub-statutory regulations – the ordinance of the Minister of Health. This way of defining the characteristics of a prohibited act raises constitutional doubts from the point of view of the principle of the exclusivity of the act and related rules:
1. Principles of the rule of law expressed in Article 2 of the Polish Constitution by not complying with the requirement of the principle of proper legislation.
2. The principles of nullum crimen sine lege certa arising from Article 42 paragraph 1 of the Polish Constitution, by violating the guarantee function of criminal law by violating the directive on statutory exclusivity and statutory specificity of an act.
3. Principles of the separation of powers resulting from Article 10 of the Polish Constitution by entrusting the executive authority with the powers of the legislative authority.
4. The principles of proportionality expressed in Article 31 paragraph 3 of the Polish Constitution regarding the grounds and scope of admissible limitation of constitutional rights and freedoms and the manner of limiting them.

The paper tries to conceptualize the social and structural change that self-governments underwent during systemic transformation in Poland. First, the situation of professional self-governments before the systemic transformation is discussed, including their liquidation at the onset of communist rule in Poland as well as the beginnings of their revival at the end of it, which was described as the first wave of development of professional self-governments. Both the reasons for liquidation, as well as revival of professional-self-governments are described. After this we discuss the second wave of this development, covering the first years after the fall of communism up to the adoption of the Polish Constitution of 1997, which regulated the status of professional self-government in the “social constitution”. Next we analyse the third wave of development of professional self-governments, which lasted until 2001 and was a portent of the conflict discussed at the end of the article between two ways of understanding what professional self-governments are and what role they should play (one focused on social constitution and other on efficiency). It is argued that from 2001 onwards professional self-governments have been treated more like a tool of effective governance (and very often – as something that hinders this governance) rather than an expression of civic society.

The choice of the formula of justice is being made by a law enacting body. In a democratic state parliament, or a political body is the main source of formulae of justice,
out of the nature of things dominated by political discourse. Here we touch the most significant problem of enacting fair and just law: considerations on the topic of justice reveal a connection of the choice of the formula of justice with philosophy. The compromise of philosophy co-acting in the twentieth century with totalitarian systems refuted then ultimately a myth about a possibility of direct translation of philosophical categories to political categories. The political practice of a liberal democratic state rejects the idea of metaphysics, which would determine the current purposes of the politics. There is a suggestion that democracy faces philosophy in the order of thinking. In spite of such attitude, the author decides to allow for philosophical establishing of the liberal-democratic state, but also allowing for the simultaneous realizing that it is by itself justified as the most reasonable political practice of the state. The philosophy may justify democracy only accepting in turn itself as a variant of a democratic discourse, although the only one which is able to have some distance to mere assumptions of philosophy, without ceasing in this way it is being a democratic discourse. Such philosophy is actually the hermeneutics of politics.

“You can get lost when standing still too.” These words of Edward Stachura are a metaphor of the main proposition of the paper. It aims to suggest a way to “set the ball rolling” by designing the paths of education for lawyers anew, with civil society in mind, and not just thinking of the requirements of legal training. Lawyers with knowledge in the field of information technology, interdisciplinary lawyers for business, lawyers-guardians of the rule of law and justice all need study programmes to take their predispositions, goals, skills, and abilities – all at different levels – into account. The purpose of the article is to shed light on the extra-legal barriers hindering the taking of a practical step ahead. The author shows three main ways of educating lawyers and explains why they are so important and why they call for changes in study programmes. Next, the author points to the obstacles faced by reformers and suggests exploring their actual impact on education in law and the level thereof.

The aim of the article is to outline the relationship between the rule of law and civic engagement in the public sphere and to attempt to answer the question whether the rule of law can be an effective tool in preventing the transformation of democracy in a tyranny of the majority; whether it can also create optimal conditions for democracy to develop. In other words, does the rule of law serve democracy and political engagement or does it rather limit the spontaneity of civic activity because stability cannot be reconciled with the freedom of citizens? The current ‘juridification’ of the public domain (the expansion of law into various areas of social existence) marginalises the validity and scope of civic presence in the decision-making process in the name of law-abidingness and the neutrality of instruments of control and of choices made by the ruling power. Can the effective solution to this situation be the opening of the concept of the rule of law to the idea of political
nature and the expansion of the domain of grassroots participation?

A review of solutions which serve the taxation of the digital economy allows for the statement of a thesis that there are many methods which could tax business activity based on digital technologies. One should remember, however, that there also must be consensus and political will in order to introduce them. Due to the lack of consensus at the global level, on 21 March 2018, the European Commission presented two draft directives which were to ensure the taxation of enterprises conducting business in the European Union in the area of digital economy: the Directive laying down rules relating to the corporate taxation of a significant digital presence and the Directive on the common system of a digital services tax on revenues resulting from the provision of certain digital services. The drafts of the Directives presented by the Commission are the beginning of the legislative work at the Union level. One should ask the question whether the European Union needs its own solutions regarding the taxation of the digital economy. In this paper,
the author attempts to evaluate whether the target solution proposed by the Commission, that is, the taxation of a significant digital presence, i.e. a digital establishment,
can be an effective tool for the taxation of the digital economy in the European
Union. For this purpose, subsequent references were made to selected opinions
of international doctrine, OECD regulations and the draft of the Directive.

The Greek polis is the birthplace of a culture whose influence persisted despite the fall of the very form of polis. This culture plays a significant part in the life of communities of today, especially in the domain of the so-called Western culture. Polis means both state and city, but most of all it is “a society, a community of people living together”. This form of governance enabled equal citizens to exercise direct supervision over their governments. Polis itself was not an invention of ancient Greeks, but the public nature thereof, especially in the form of the debate-based democracy and the rule of law – not of people – turned out to be their contribution to the idea of a city-state. Democracy as a common form of a political system can be found particularly in the Greek culture of polis.
The general notions deriving from the Greek polis, i.e. citizenship, democracy, equality, independence, autonomy or justice, express a desire for a better life of an individual in a community. The democracy of classical times, characterised by equal citizenship and freedom of speech, is considered as the first one to moderate fierce social-economic disputes. It is this polis that made it possible for philosophy and science to develop. The modern-day discussion on the state in a globalised and increasingly urbanised world can surely benefit from a reflection on the civil and legal dimensions of polis.

The so-called „Beasts Act" is a legal regulation, which deals with particularly dangerous perpetrators convicted by valid sentences for many years before its entry into force and concerns the proceedings against them after serving their prison sentences. Its enactment and entry into force was accompanied by a lot of legal controversy, which ultimately led to its appeal to the Constitutional Tribunal. The Constitutional Tribunal held that the inclusion of people regarded as particularly dangerous does not violate constitutional guarantees of individual rights. The Court said that the placement of the Centre is not of a criminal nature, but only administrative and it is not ruling a second time in the same case. The article critically refers to the thesis of the Constitutional Tribunal and its argumentation.

Research on the functioning of public administration is interdisciplinary. The analysis of the functioning of public administration requires a systemic view in which the system of relations between the entire system and individual subsystems of public administration on the one hand and its external environment on the other is an important element. This approach comes from the management sciences. It is reflected in the science of administration. The social subsystem is a particular subsystem of public administration requiring an interdisciplinary approach. In the Polish system of public administration, the social subsystem consists of employees forming the civil service corps and other staff employed in offices and other public administration structures. Formation of the administration staff is associated not only with the recruitment of properly educated candidates for work in the offices of public administration bodies. It is very important to shape appropriate ethical attitudes of officials of both government and local government administration. They should know the rules of official ethics. However, it is not possible to codify all the ethical standards of a public administration employee, so the general standards of the moral law should be applied in this respect. Currently, graduates of higher education studies preparing for work in administration are generally adequately prepared for analysing normative acts, issuing administrative decisions or understanding the rules of the legal system in general, but they lack the basis for addressing to a sufficient extent the issues related to ethics of acting and respecting the values adopted in the society.

The article discusses the issue of the possibility of regulating matters concerning higher education and its institutions in executive and internal acts. It presents the acceptable limits of delegating matters relating to higher education to regulations, as well as internal acts of higher education institutions. These limits are described taking into account the principle of autonomy of higher education institutions, as well as the rules on the creation of law, in particular the rules for issuing regulations. It was also pointed out that the incorrect division of matter between act of parliament (statute) and a regulation violates constitutional rules of law creation. It is also contrary to the protection of entities’ trust in the state and law and the principle of division and balance of power. Faulty formation of the higher education system is not good to the quality of education and conducting scientific research. It hinders the implementation of the freedom of science.

In the article, the author discusses the basic assumptions of the reform of the Law on Higher Education and Science, which is to be has been introduced in Poland in autumn 2018, with particular emphasis on the rules of employing university teachers. One of the most important changes in this area is the resignation from appointment as a basis for establishing employment relationships with this professional group in favour of an employment contract. It is the end of the process of departing from the employment model based on the special status of university teachers, which has lasted for over a dozen years. Now, they will largely be subject to general labour law regulations. This means making the legal regulation more flexible and therefore also reducing the protection against dismissal, the right to which has been vested in the appointed teachers so far. The author also believes that the changes currently being implemented are only the first stage of the reform, which should result in a significant increase in financial outlays for higher education institutions and in the approximation of the level of salaries of university teachers to standards in developed countries.

Important for the scientific and philosophical mode of thought is the issue of circumstances that lead to the emergence of such type of reflection, different from traditional ways of explaining the reality by mythological beliefs. The spiritual search of a philosophising man turned out to be a reflection upon rule, upon the all-governing principle, i.e. both the natural world (cosmos) and the relations between people. This mode of thought evolved when a need and possibility for writing down (setting out) abstract legal norms (nomos) for the sake of certainty and verifiability of judgments arose. It was vital also for the trade and in particular for ownership (civil law), whose value was abstractly expressed in monetary money. These were the crucial factors in the initiation and development of scientific and philosophical (abstract) thought. Other fundamental conditions for the development of science and philosophy included liberty, equality and respect for otherness, as well as the non-orthodox character of beliefs (myths). These were ensured by the civic, cosmopolitan and economically developed polis, particularly the democratic one. Such conditions for the development of science and philosophy have proved to be universal and timeless.

There are some typical relations that can be observed in public administration, including management, supervision, control, co-ordination and co-operation. The latter two are seldom subject to scrutiny by administration law academics. The purpose of this article is to initiate a discussion on filling this gap. In most cases, co-ordination is performed in connection with management, supervision or control. This type of co-ordination can be described as functional. However, independent co-ordination also exists. Due to the limited number of positive law regulations regarding this type of co-ordination, it is usually limited to the co-ordinating body applying non-executive measures. The co-ordination relationship in administration law is an unusual type. At least three entities are necessary for such a relationship to exist, namely a co-ordinator and two co-ordinated parties. The analysis of co-operation in public administration is possible upon considering the principle of general co-operation as a separate one. This principle could have the status of a general administration law principle, but the positive law does not currently formulate this principle directly. However, it can be derived from various applicable rules, including rules of constitutional importance. This principle dictates that all public administration entities must co-operate with each other. The article attempts to define forms of co-operation, indicating their diversity. Many issues related to co-ordination and co-operation in administration still require scientific explanation. A further stage should involve regulating these activities within the framework of the positive law. This could be implemented by future act – the “General Provisions of Administrative Law”.

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.

Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 (Tryckfrihetsförordningen), the world’s very first legislation supporting freedom of the press and freedom of information, is part of the country’s constitution and grants today the widest possible public access to official documents. It forms the basis of the traditional Swedish right known as The Principle of Public Access to Official Documents (offentlighetsprincipen) and plays a crucial role not only in providing the right to access public documents, but is also indispensable in order to uphold public accountability of government and state officials. Exercising the widest possible transparency contributes to the proper functioning of the liberal democratic system, while curtailing corruption and abuse. Developing transparency and shaping an open society promotes greater participation of citizens in the society, encourages confidence in the state – an essential element in building an effective state that is to serve its owners, the citizens – as well as benefits the functioning of the rule of law and increases the quality of democracy.

Mass migrations entail cultural changes in host nations. This includes the legal culture. Ours is the culture founded on the idea of equality and respect for individual rights, most profoundly expressed during the Great French Revolution. This culture is currently under pressure from migrants bringing in their own vision of society and law. Some of it promotes the inequality of men and women, reluctance to recognize secular law as law and disregard for democracy as a man-made order of things. The changes are hard to resist as the newcomers enjoy the protection of formalistically understood human rights. The need to respect the culture of the new arrivals, entrenched in our legal culture, works as a centrifugal force. To respect everybody’s needs a cohabitation of conflicting values is being tolerated. For example, it is morally wrong that known terrorists and Somalian pirates receive compensation for minor procedural violations by order of European courts from the same taxpayers who were exposed to their vile efforts. What suffers is equality and democracy and trust in the rule of law. We stand and the crossroads and some measures have to be taken to protect European legal culture from feudalization where each ethnic group is governed by its own law. One of the measures is to start paying attention to collective human rights of the indigenous nations that built that culture. It is time to apply the Radbruch’s doctrine on morally unaccepted effects of both existing laws and certain court decisions. An old adage “no democracy for the enemies of democracy” fits the needs of today.

In his study, F. Ancora is exploring the fundamental concepts of jurisprudence: the rule of law, the state of law and the concept of legal certainty. This analysis proves – according to its author – that the aforementioned concepts evolve and that they are completely unchangeable in their content. F. Ancora considers this feature to be not only important, but also desirable. It makes it possible to adopt the content of basic legal categories into changing social, economical and political conditions, even if it may threaten legal certainty.