The functioning of the Customs Union requires the Member States to apply uniform customs regulations for the entire economic area governed by common rules for trade in goods with non-EU countries. This poses significant challenges to all customs administrations implementing customs policy within the Customs Union. In this regard, the Member States should act to allow for proper economic development and a high level of protection of the social and economic interests of the integration grouping. These interdependencies make it necessary to coordi nate the actions of the administrations regulating foreign trade in individual Member States of the Customs Union. In the European Union, the need to coordi nate activities under-taken within the entire customs system has become the foundation of a thorough reform of legal regulations defining the constitutional, substantive, and procedural models of functioning of the Customs Union. The legislative changes being imple-mented aim to bring about an IT reform translating into the integration of IT solu-tions for the administration of foreign trade in goods and the establishment of new administrative entities to ensure proper coordination of activities within the customs system of the European Union.

The entry into force of the Act of 14 April 2023 on the State Commission for the Investigation of Russian Influence on the Internal Security of the Republic of Poland in the Years 2007–2022 was met with huge criticism not only from politicians from the camp opposing the ruling party but also from average individuals. It was emphasized that these regulations violate the universal right to information because the activities of the State Commission in the light of the regulations in question are not covered by full transparency. This is even though the legislator has explicitly classified it as a public authority. The main objective of the article is to compare the status, organization, and functioning of the authority with the subjective and objective premises for making public information available, and then to determine whether the legislator intended to shape a new restriction on access to information, or whether these regulations can be included in the group of separate provisions to which the Act of 6 September 2001 on access to public information gives priority to application.

Margin squeezing is an abuse of dominant position, which is not directly mentioned in Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). It is the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the Euro­pean General Court that have recognised this practice as anti­competitive, initially treating it as anti­competitive refusal to supply. Given the many similarities between these practices, there are questions as to whether margin squeeze should be consi­dered an separate manifestation of an abuse of dominant position. The aim of the article is to analyse the position of the European Commission in this regard and juxtapose it with the views contained in relevant judicial decisions, judgements, and rulings, as well as to compare it with the regulations adopted in the United States.

Educational quality assurance is among the most important issues in the organisa-tion and functioning of the higher education system. The higher education system in Estonia is closely linked to the external environment. Its characteristics and the quality of education are influenced by the standards of the entire education and science system and the socio-economic environment. In Estonia, these characteris-tics are strongly influenced by the implemented innovation policy, international cooperation and computerisation in the sphere of activities of public institutions including education, education and higher education. Quality assessments of higher education are organised and carried out by the Agency for Higher Education Quality in accordance with international rules. Currently, education quality assess-ment is carried out by the Estonian Quality Agency for Education, Eesti Hariduse Kvaliteediagentuur (HAKA). Its activities are highly rated in the work of interna-tional associations for cooperation in the field of education quality assurance.

The regulations introduced by the Act of November 4, 2022 amending the Act on the National Court Register, the Act on the Code of Civil Procedure and the Act on the Code of Commercial Companies constitute the first stage of implementation of Directive 2019/1151 of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) of June 20, 2019. These regulations are primarily intended to facilitate the functioning of entrepreneurs in the sphere of economic turnover. Despite the broad scope of the regulations of the so-called „company law package” in Directive 2019/1151, it should be recognized that the implementation law itself is not revolutionary. This is due to the fact that most of the regulations contained therein are already successfully applicable in Poland, while the changes introduced are primarily aimed at organizing the Polish legal system and facilitating access to information about entrepreneurs. The purpose of this article is to present the statutory changes consisting in the implementation into the Polish legal order of the regulations included in the so-called „package of company law” and the scope of implementation, as well as an attempt to assess the rationale for their introduction

Public administration undergoes constant changes in its basic forms of functioning and ongoing organisational structures. The introduced changes result from the necessity of adjusting to changes of scene and realized reforms of regime, which, next to changes in the public administration, concern the whole structure of a given state. The most important regime changes which are also connected with the structure of the public administration include changes in the territorial division of that state. The changes in this area result from social, economic and demographic changes, they are also very often dictated by a change in the legislator’s vision regarding the holistic system of managing public matters and the performance of public tasks. Nowadays, these traditional criteria are overlapped with dependencies resulting from computerisation processes that influence the application of administrative and legal regulations and the forms of the performance of public tasks.
The processes also concern the forms of contact and information flow between citizens and public entities. The management of a high level of computerisation in the area of administration processes, as observed in Estonia, allows for making the organisational structures of the state and public administration real while preserving, or even enhancing, the standards of the availability of public provisions and the performance of public tasks.

The article covers the issue of the functioning of one of the advisory bodies of central governmental administration, i.e. the Council for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Affairs, which is associated with the President of the National Atomism Agency (PAA), the chief nuclear supervision body in Poland, which is the competent authority in nuclear safety and radiation protection affairs, as defined in the Atomic Law (Prawo atomowe). The article presents the objectives of the functioning of the Council as an advisory body to the nuclear supervision authority on the basis of international and European law and the views of the nuclear energy law doctrine. In relation to the Council, an important role is played by soft law acts, especially the so-called IAEA safety standards. Despite the fact that they are not legally binding, they constitute a valuable and extensive collection of recommendations supporting regional and national legislative activity. The purpose of this study is also a critical analysis of the amendment to the Atomic Law from 2016 in the section relating to changes made to the way of shaping the Council’s make-up. They caused the loss of one of the Council’s most important attributes, i.e. independence in the decision-making process and they deprived the President of the PAA (decision-making body) of influence on shaping its make-up. The changes introduced should be interpreted as an unequivocal negation of the ratio legis of appointing the Council and a significant step backwards in relation to the existing practice and legislative trends in recent years. The author postulates restoring the previous legal solutions as the ones that will allow the Council, the advisory body, to fulfil its function in the right way, really supporting the decision-making authority for which it works.

This paper dwells on the relationship between judicial empathy and integrity. It claims that for the emergence and proper functioning of judicial empathy as a kind of judicial virtue, a number of conditions needed to be fulfilled, including the development of judicial integrity. The paper aims to unpack this argument and to demonstrate judicial empathy and integrity in action as exemplified particularly by judicial behaviour observed during empirical research in Cracow lower courts. The overall perspective for examining the relationship between judicial empathy and integrity rests on the developmental vision of a judge. Although the presented research fits into the broader interest in judicial empathy and judicial virtues, the paper contains concrete examples of verbal and non-verbal behaviours of a judge that demonstrate how judicial empathy co-functions with other skills and virtues. In general, the paper opposes the marginalisation of judicial skills and virtues.

The paper is devoted to selected issues concerning acts from the same day, i.e. 29 July 2020: the Electronic Communications Law, and the act introducing the Electronic Communications Law. Both drafts have been prepared in connection with implementing the provisions of Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 Establishing the European Electronic Communications Code (‘the EECC’) into the Polish legal order. Only selected issues from both draft acts were presented, for which the basic selection criterion was their significant practical importance in terms of their influence on the functioning of the telecommunications market in Poland. The purpose of the analysis and research was to answer the question whether the proposed regulations were compliant with the EECC and whether, from the perspective of the requirements of practice, effective solutions had been adopted. The analysis was based on comparing the projected EECC regulations and on possible practical consequences after their implementation. The analysis covers the projected provisions – from the Polish law and the EU law. The conducted analysis indicated a need for modifying them, in particular: imposing security obligations; the scope and manner of replacing the existing documents for customers with new ones; the conditions of customerv ideo verification; transitional provisions. The article presents proposals for specific amendments to the projected provisions. The presented issues are not only of theoretical importance, but also of great practical importance when it comes to the functioning of the telecommunications market and, above all, when it comes to customerswho use telecommunications services

The principles of „Public Procurement” are important for the proper functioning of the public procurement system. There is no doubt that principles of public procurement system have a special significance for the above mentioned system, since they indicate the direction of interpretation of provisions of the public procurement law as well as they allow a proper interpretation of the meaning of legal norms. The purpose of this elaboration is to present two basic principles of the public procurement law, i.e. the principle of fair competition and equal treatment of economic operators as well as the principle of transparency. The Author indicates the institutional expression of these principles in the procedure of awarding public procurement and indicates the violations of the principles which occur in the practice of law.

The article concerns the safety needs and the private security sector. Its content is focused on three questions: 1) what are safety needs; 2) what distinguishes safety needs; and 3) what results from the knowledge about safety needs? These three questions concern relationship between safety needs and the private security sector. Their content shows the way of understanding needs, particularly safety needs, their functioning and examples. It also indicates the features safety needs that decide their differences from other needs. The article ends conclusions that concern the private security sector.

The Act of 17 December 2009 on pursuing claims in class actions regulating court proceedings in cases which involve claims of at least 10 people, is a kind of novelty in Polish law. Undoubtedly, it is a legal act improving and modernizing Polish civil proceedings. However, one should pay attention to new developments and the lack of their clarification, and therefore to the importance of already issued judgments of the Supreme Court. For this reason, existing jurisdiction on this subject has been presented and analyzed, which allows to precise the subjective scope, the term and extent of the unification of claims, as well as the concept and requirement of a representative of the collective. Without any doubts, the practice, which starts to shape, as indicated on the example of jurisdiction, will allow to clarify the scope of the subject and object of the Act. The ability to limit the claims for liability of the defendant has, without any doubts, a very important role in functioning of the class action, because the unification of pecuniary claims is in practice very difficult. Past court decisions show that unification should be understood as occurrence of a members’ request for the generically same forms of protection. Many practical problems are also raised by the concept of the representative of the collective, and the way, in which the collective should choose one.

As a result of a reform implemented in 2017, the National Revenue Administration was established in place of the existing tax administration, tax inspection, and the Customs Service. The tax administration was consolidated this way. Although the efficiency of collecting VAT, excise tax and fuel duty increased, there are still areas which require an analysis of the definition, statistical and legal scope, and an increase in the efficiency of enforcing compliance with both the European Union’s regulations on customs and tax and the Polish ones. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the functioning of regulations which have been applicable since 1 March 2017 and which concern customs and tax inspection of the assessment and collection of charges, which are related the import and export of goods onto the customs territory of the European Union, by the new authorities.

Rule of law is one of the most fundamental values of the European Union and the issues related thereto have become one of the top priorities not only in the EU agenda but also in the EU policies of most of the Member States, including Sweden. This is due to the increasing integration, the growing dependence of the functioning of the entire European Union on the way how the system of justice works in different Member States, and the concern over the condition of the rule of law in these Member States. In recent years, the European Union has been making use of some older instruments, whose aim is to control and improve the observance of the rule of law (including Art. 7 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), and has adopted some new solutions too – the European rule of law mechanism and the regulation regarding rule of law conditionality, related to the new EU budget. The need to work out effective procedures to determine the condition of the rule of law and to uphold the main standards of the system of justice in all EU Member States is becoming more and more urgent and remains one of the greatest challenges faced by the European Union to be dealt with by the Swedish government.

The coronavirus pandemic and the economic consequences it has caused are unprecedented. For the first time ever, we are dealing with the phenomenon of a global pandemic which has undermined the foundations of market economy to such a considerable extent. The fight against it has made it necessary for the govern-ments of individual countries to make decisions radically restricting the freedom of conducting business activity – including decisions to suspend the functioning of particular economic sectors. The imposed lockdown meant that a great many of employers had to completely abandon their operations or radically limit the scope of the activities they were involved in virtually overnight, which obviously had an impact on their ability to make any profit and on their financial situation. At the same time, limiting or even cancelling the possibilities of doing business was a threat to the labour market, heralding its collapse and therefore an increase in the rate of unemployment. This is because a natural consequence of such a situa-tion is that employers decide to dismiss employees. A real threat of an economic crisis of an unparalleled scale prompted the governments of most countries to take far-reaching measures to save the economy. The Polish government imposed restrictions on the functioning of many econo-mic sectors as early as in March 2020. At the same time, there began legislative work on the so-called Anti-Crisis Shield.4 The resulting act, passed on 31 March 2020, was subsequently amended several times. The subsequent editions of the Anti-Crisis Shield featured regulations aimed at, among others, employers affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The purpose of this text is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the measures incorporated in the Anti-Crisis Shield in order to protect the interests of employers, i.e. the solutions related to the situation of employment of employees. The starting point will be an attempt to establish the rationale guiding the legislator when introducing these solutions. Then, the analysis will focus on the instruments used by the legislator to provide the protection of employers’ interests – and on the subject of protection. Finally, an attempt to evaluate the effects of these regulations will be made.

The article focuses on the normative, institutional, and operational design of the European Union as an area where a considerable part of internal security is based on state-of-the-art technologies and large-scale information systems. This is followed by an analysis of the legal challenges arising from the establishment of so-called smart borders, i.e. borders involving automated border control and the interoperability of all large-scale information systems.
The article poses two fundamental research questions. Firstly: how do these new phenomena affect the effectiveness of management of the external borders in the EU? Secondly: are the existing legal frameworks able to bear the changes that are occurring? It seems that the aspiration towards interoperability may cause tensions underlying the establishment and functioning of the area of freedom, security, and justice (AFSA) in the EU – if the EU’s information systems become more and more interoperable, then the EU legal order may become less and less consistent with them.

The inspiration behind the article is the two new provisions of the Polish Criminal Code, penalising the up to now unpunished behaviour leading up to murder, introduced by means of the Act of 13 June 2019 on the Amendment of the Act – Criminal Code and Certain Other Acts. Despite the doubts regarding the constitutionality of the act in question, it is reasonable to look into the mechanism of preparation to murder and contract killing, if only because of the fact that these solutions may return in further draft amendments to the Criminal Code. The analysed provisions has given rise to a more general reflection on the legitimacy of penalisation of preparation to murder in the light of contemporary indications of the theory of criminalisation. The discussion also features remarks on the already functioning types of prohibited acts, used, among others, to criminalise acts undertaken at the stage of preparation to murder. The conclusions have led to a demand for the adoption of a provision sanctioning an incomplete variant of preparation to murder and for a total abandonment of separate criminalisation of contract killing.

In addition to search engines, social networks represent an important digital service for many Internet users. Social network services such as Facebook, Xing, or Twitter provide vital platforms for communication and sharing of content as part of a modern, user-friendly Internet. Public criticism of social networks is expressed in particular with regard to processing of personal data. These play a central role in business models of many social networks, with regard to their use e.g. for advertising purposes. A question is, if it can be assumed that market-dominant providers, due to a lock-in effect, can demand a wide-ranging consent for the collection and use of personal data that would be expected in a functioning competition? In the following, social networks, potential competition issues and possible legislative measures due to concentration tendencies in connection with access to user data in the area of social networks will be discussed.