The article examines theoretical and practical problems concerning the realisation of participatory democracy’s potential for forming and implementing state policy on counteracting epidemics. The article is aimed at the study of participatory democracy as a tool of state’s interaction with the public while counteracting epidemics throughout history, from antiquity to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Comparative, comparative legal, systemic-structural, dialectical, historical and other scientific methods have been employed to examine the issues discussed in the article. The application of the aforementioned methods is conducted on the interdisciplinary scientific basis.

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 constitutionalization of the referendum and law making citizens’ initiatives makes them important institutions and also important tools for exercising direct democracy. The question that arises today is the effective usage of these tools, in the framework of enhancing the direct participation of the citizens in governance. Particularly, in countries like Albania, which represents one of the newest democracies established after the fall of the Communist regime in Europe, the exercising of these instruments encounters different challenges, coming up especially due to lack of traditions and practices in exercising direct democracy, legislation vacuum and the insufficiency of organizational experiences of the civil society. Nevertheless, some experiences in particular have been achieved in the last 15 years, after the current Constitution of the Republic of Albania was enacted. Out of the
direct democracy instruments that are sanctioned in the Constitution of the Republic of Albania, this paper will focus only upon the law making citizens’ initiative and on the abrogative referendum initiative, as well. Legislation, jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court and some other issues identified through the experiences established in Albania will be treated in this paper. These experiences are analyzed in a comparative point of
view with the experiences of other countries, particularly Italy.

Women’s rights are an inseparable part of the human rights, and human rights are an integrated part of women’s rights. The Swedish Government has adopted a concept of feminist foreign policy, aiming at strengthening these rights on a global level. Women’s rights are continued to be violated as much as ever, hindering democracy, peace, rule of law, sustainable development and economic growth – the overarching aims of international policy. Women’s rights to education, financial resources and access to the labour market are crucial in defending human rights and having a policy for 100 per cent of the world’s population. A priority task of the feminist foreign policy is supporting women’s inclusion in all decision-making structures, both on national and multilateral level. This in order to achieve wider foreign, development and security policy objectives through a new approach, different way of thinking and different solutions.

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 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 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?

This text aims to prove the thesis that we are currently witnessing a birth of new constitutional solutions. The populist movements across the world, and especially in Central and Eastern Europe, are effectively redesigning liberal-democratic constitutionalism. There is a clear correlation between populism, constitutionalism, and democracy, and so the process of redesign of the Central and Eastern European constitutionalism has an underlying democratic potential. Perhaps it is a sort of necessary adjustment of the system implanted in this part of the world after 1989.

The article is based on an assumption that constitutionalism has a Janus face. A constitution is both a legal and a political act. So far, the public domain has been dominated by legal constitutionalism (constitutional dogmatics), which excludes the constitution from the public sphere, subjecting it to the authority of lawyers-experts. The contemporary political phenomena such as: new populism, illiberal democracy or new constitutionalism should shift the interest of researchers to the political aspect of constitutionalism. Constitutionalism is, therefore, a multidimensional social practice. A political game featuring many actors. And the constitutionalism of lawyers is only one of its possible interpretations. Citizens also have their own constitutionalisms, and different perspectives on constitutionalism, reflecting opposing interests, may lead to conflicts. The constitutional law dogmatics applied to resolve such conflicts would argue for the existence of a transcendental framework for their resolution. A more political approach denies the existence of such a framework. In other words, the dogmatics in question requires democracy to adapt to constitutionalism, while the political approach requires constitutionalism to adapt to democracy. The text is an introduction to a part of a volume featuring articles by authors affiliated with the Centre for Legal Education and Social Theory of the University of Wrocław.

The article portrays the ballot paper as a constitutional instrument of electoral democracy. The authors argue that the result of an election often depends on the form, the content, and the method of filling out the ballot. It is shown that a ballot is an election instrument of standard form, by means of which a voter votes for candidates and/or lists of candidates, and which later allows to establish the election results. It is concluded that the definition and classification of ballot types has not only theoretical but also practical value. In particular, this issue is of great practical significance in four cases: 1) simultaneous elections of differing types (sometimes including a simultaneous vote at a referendum); election of candidates for elective offices under different types of electoral systems or different types of territorial constituencies; 3) the vote count and establishing the outcome of the election; 4) prosecuting criminals for the illegal use of ballots.

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.

The article concerns real and potential reactions of jurisprudential discourses to the phenomenon of the crisis of liberal democracy. The author argues that liberal democracy has been a hegemonic structure – meaning that not only has it been dominant in the factual sense in the broadly understood Western legal and political culture but it has also effectively suppressed any competing discourses. Today, the hegemony of demoliberalism is being questioned. The new state of affairs causes a range of complications that
jurisprudential discourses have to deal with. The author considers three possible scenarios of the reaction of these discourses to the said crisis. The first of them means a shift towards democratic authoritarianism. The second is about remaining in a collective hypocrisy, waiting for a change in the current intellectual climate. The third involves accepting the political nature of jurisprudence and making the concept of agonistic democracy a reality.

The article is based on an assumption that constitutionalism has a Janus face. A constitution is both a legal and a political act. So far, the public domain has been dominated by legal constitutionalism (constitutional dogmatics), which excludes the constitution from the public sphere, subjecting it to the authority of lawyers-experts. The contemporary political phenomena such as: new populism, illiberal democracy or new constitutionalism should shift the interest of researchers to the political aspect of constitutionalism. Constitutionalism is, therefore, a multidimensional social practice. A political game featuring many actors. And the constitutionalism of lawyers is only one of its possible interpretations. Citizens also have their own constitutionalisms, and different perspectives on constitutionalism, reflecting opposing interests, may lead to conflicts. The constitutional law dogmatics applied to resolve such conflicts would argue for the existence of a transcendental framework for their resolution. A more political approach denies the existence of such a framework. In other words, the dogmatics in question requires democracy to adapt to constitutionalism, while the political approach requires constitutionalism to adapt to democracy. The text is an introduction to a part of a volume featuring articles by authors affiliated with the Centre for Legal Education and Social
Theory of the University of Wrocław.

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?

Research into liberal democracy’s self-preserving quality is usually confined to the notion ‘militant democracy’ and focuses mainly on the specific instruments the political system employs to challenge its adversaries and bolster its structure. This paper takes a different approach to understanding liberal democracy’s self-preservation. It challenges the boundaries of the dominant concept by exploring consolidative tendencies in a more general and comprehensive fashion, focusing on gradual political – and legal evolutionary developments that contribute to the solidification of the political system. On that basis, a critical follow-up question is posed: what are the implications of these consolidative endeavours? By highlighting ‘political impotence’ and its destabilizing effects as one of more socio-political implications, the paper suggests that the self-preserving vigour of liberal democracy might turn out to be counterproductive, and that the crisis which liberal democracy is now experiencing does not occur in spite of but rather because of its self-preserving characteristics.

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.