Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022, at the age of 96 and after the longest reign in British history. Her death brings up the question of what the future holds for the monarchy. The paper explores the monarch’s role – both at home and abroad – as head of state. It also analyses how the new king will have to adapt to socio-political and demographic changes the United Kingdom has been going through. Britain is now recovering from Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic and dealing with the ongoing economic crisis and growing calls for Scottish independence and the change of status of Northern Ireland. The Queen successfully navigated the monarch’s constitutional political neutrality, but the new circumstances raise key questions about what kind of King former Prince Charles will be and whether public support for the monarchy will outlive support for Elizabeth II.

Public prosecution service has an irreplaceable place in the system of state authorities. However, the years of authoritarian regimes transformed independent public prosecution authorities existing on the territory of Slovakia and the Czech Republic into authorities protecting primarily the regime and persecuting all persons who were non-compliant with this regime. It was not until the fall of Communism in 1989 that a change came – a return to the original mission of public prosecution service (the independent protection of law). However, after the division of the Czechoslovakia in 1993 opinion plurality and the lack of a clear opinion on the nature of the public prosecution service resulted in the creation of two relatively different models – the model of prokuratúra in Slovakia and the model of státní zastupitelství in the Czech Republic. This is the reason why the author of this paper deals with the constitutional status of public prosecution service in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He analyses public prosecution service as a constitutional institution in general and then by comparison he focuses on constitutional regulation of the Slovak and Czech public prosecution service. The final parts contain brief evaluation of the current legal status and some possible considerations de constitutione ferenda.

In this article, the Polish institution of administrative entry to the area in order to carry out repair, maintenance or removal of failures of transmission equipment will be presented. It entitles to public-law interference in the constitutionally protected property right, under the condition that the determinants of its application have been met. The aim of the analysis is to indicate that the expropriation nature of this regulation, which is a specific form of expropriation, requires a strict interpretation of the premises leading to the restriction of the ownership for purposes related to transmission activity. An attempt will be made to demonstrate that the restriction of the ownership made on the basis of an administrative decision meets the expropriation standards applicable in the Polish legal system. The presented issues are not only of purely theoretical importance, but will also be used in the application of legal regulations by both public administration authorities and transmission companies applying for a permission.

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 author’s goal is to analyze the concept of distributive justice and the possibility of its normative formulation in the Polish constitutional order. The starting point of consideration is the principle of social justice expressed in Article 2 of the Constitution and the model of distributive justice developed on its basis. The author, using formal-dogmatic, theoretical-legal and comparative-legal methods, points out the features of contributive justice and examines the normative and practical possibility of changing the paradigm of the constitutional fair state through a novel approach to justice focusing on equitable contribution, instead of the hitherto dominant distributive pattern. The result of the research conducted is the conclusion that, for reasons justified by the constitutional system and the praxeology of the workplace, contributive justice expands the concept of constitutional social justice in a valuable and desirable way.

The aim of the article is to offer proposals for reforming and speeding up health care in Ukraine, in particular by comparing the current system with a decentralized system. The methodology of this research follows basic social science methods (formal analysis, inductive method, deductive method, analogy, synthesis, etc.). With these methods, we address the issues of the health care reform in Ukraine. The article explores the issue of improving the health care in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government is carrying out two important reforms – a health care reform and a decentralization reform that includes changes in the municipal government. These two reforms have a huge potential for improving Ukraine’s health care system. Such potential remains largely untapped.

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 purpose of the article is analyse how essential the issue of personal data protection is in the procedure of leading a collective dispute. In order to make some findings in this matter, the dogmatic and legal method was primarily used and the provisions of the Act on Resolving Collective Disputes and the GDPR were analysed in the first place. The findings made lead to the conclusion that despite the fact that the dispute itself is collective, both parties (both the trade union and the employer) process a range of personal data during the dispute. Due to the specifics of the procedure and the fact that the Act was essentially created before the GDPR came into force and it was not amended for the inclusion of broadly understood requirements for the correctness of the processing of personal data, it is necessary to rely on general principles resulting from the GDPR, and a certain indicator of it may be opinions issued by the PDPO.
The issue raised in this paper has so far been included in certain statements from the doctrine, but its practical significance and importance for social partners who execute their constitutional right to lead collective disputes fully justify further research in this direction as well as the fact of findings resulting from that research reaching various target groups (apart from the above-mentioned social partners, representatives of the judicature and science should also be reached).

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 COVID-19 pandemic, placing societies and governments in an exceptional situation in every respect, has had an impact on the legal order of individual countries. It pressed them, on the one hand, to take swift and decisive actions and, on the other hand – to a necessary thorough assessment and considering of the costs and consequences, both legal and economic, of the introduced measures, often related to the constraints of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. Although Sweden during the pandemic seemingly chose a path different from other European countries, keeping social life largely unaffected, in its essence this strategy did not differ much from those used in other countries. The aim of the article is to present the solutions adopted in Sweden and to analyse the Swedish strategy against the background of constitutional civil liberties.

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 analyzes the concept of integrity of a judge from the perspective of the virtue jurisprudence. There are the judicial virtues specified and described, including integrity as one of the elements of the virtue of justice. Subjective and objective integrity are distinguished, as well as personal, professional and institutional integrity. Integrity of a judge is understood as personal integrity combined with professional integrity and also institutional integrity in which values and aims of the profession are taken into account. Virtue jurisprudence does not provide clear directives for solving legal disputes but it emphasizes the necessity of referring to the dispositions of a judge in order to understand fully the process of judgment. On the grounds of virtue jurisprudence, the integrity of a moral subject if assumed which provides the foundation for trust in the profession of judge and does not allow for the separation of social roles, assuming the possibility of reconciling them with the use of prudence. The problem of conflicting virtues, namely integrity and impartiality in the context of judicial review is discussed on the example of the judgment of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of October 22, 2020, K 1/20 which illustrates judicial activism. The considerations concerning this example bring about the conclusion that in the most controversial political and moral disputes, political prudence suggest the direction of the virtue of judicial restraint due to deference of democracy and the division of powers.

The article deals with the problem of modal inference: if some addressees are
obliged to do something, they are also obliged to realize states of affairs which
constitute a necessary condition for the main obligation. Likewise, they are obliged
to refrain from realizing states of affairs which constitute a sufficient condition for
the action contradicting the main obligation. This type of inference is called in Polish legal theory “instrumental inference”. It is argued in the article that sometimes instrumental norms in law must be fulfilled (“preparatory actions” must be undertaken) before the main obligation is fulfilled. Lawgiver helps addressees of norms by applying vacatio legis. It can lead to new paradoxical consequences – to the creation of “virtual norms” – norms which never come into force, but addressees are obliged to undertake preparatory actions. The article presents theoretical
description of this phenomenon. In conclusion one dogmatic claim is proposed:
there is a potential way (art. 4171 § 1 k.c.) of getting from public officials compensation for preparatory actions which caused burden for addressees, when the main obligation turned out to be “virtual”. In Poland this procedure should be based on the rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal.

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.

In the paper, we deal with the issue of education of lawyers in doctoral schools in
Poland. We describe the basic solutions adopted by the Constitution for Science regarding doctoral students. Based on socio-legal theory of the neutralisation of values in the law, we point out a few basic the categories of problems resulting from the regulations and the implementation of the act. They are: a vision of a doctoral candidate, a vision of a graduate, internationalization, interdisciplinarity, structure of doctoral schools and financing of doctoral education. The article is exploratory in nature, so its primary purpose is recognising and drawing attention to the problems and research questions that should be studied in further research.

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.