What is law and what is teaching – remains disputable. The departure point shouldbe the notio n of law, which cannot be said to exist without reference to normativity, binding power and predictability. The obstacle in teaching law is that there are several centrifugal forces resulting in disintegration of law. These are, for example: creating fake sources of law such as binding recommendations, amending laws by lower-ranking acts, which is the specialty of the EU; informally adopting the
common law doctrine of stare decisis by Continental Judges; using the interpretation of law as a fig leaf for actually amending it; demanding the disregarding of national laws by judges if they come to the conclusion that national laws are in violation of the EU law by the EU Court, even if there is no procedural framework to do so. In teaching law, a teacher should promote theories and practices conducive to the cohesion of the legal system. Teachers have to take sides in the encounter of conflicting ideas and practices in the spirit of fighting for a better law.

The article deals with the practice of invoking philosophers in the reasons for judgments of the Polish courts. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the case law of the common courts, administrative courts, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Tribunal allowed for the formulation of several main conclusions. First, although judgments containing references to philosophers constitute only a small fraction of all the case law, at the same time, when measured in absolute numbers, cases of quoting philosophers are not marginal. Second, in the two last decades there has been a clear intensification in the use of philosophical references in judgments. Third, references to philosophers exercise a number of different functions falling within the clarification and persuasive purposes of
grounds of judgments. Fourth, there is no one attitude among courts and the parties towards the presence of philosophical arguments in the judicial process. The titular issue is not the further stage of the legal scholarship’s discourse on “judges as philosophers” in the likeness of Dworkin’s “Judge Hercules”. The practice of referring to philosophers by the courts is primarily an issue of the style of reasons for judgment and the role of non-legal sources in the rationalisation of judicial decisions – and not so much in the making of them. In the author’s view, the case law study reveals the utilitarian potential of philosophy for judicial argumentation.

Climate change is one of the key civilisational issues. This change is caused by greenhouse gas emission. Stopping this change requires multidirectional actions on a global scale, primarily limiting the combustion of fossil fuels. What reaches towards these needs is the proposals of the international community, which are determined in the protocol of 15 December 2015 (called the Paris Agreement). The legal framework for the strategy of implementing it in the European Union and the member states is formulated by the legislative package “Clean Energy For All Europeans”. The directions and terms of developing the economy pose particular challenges for Poland which plans to maintain
the significant role of coal in the energy industry for decades. Government documents show that the government of the Republic of Poland will not decide on the spectacular decarbonisation of the economy. It cannot be obligated to do it, either, due to the treaty conditions. However, the future of the coal energy industry seems prejudged. This results from the development directions of European economic-legal instruments which serve the direct (determining binding emission standards and environmental quality standards) and indirect (through influencing the prices of greenhouse gas emission allowances) rationing of the activity of entities from the energy sector in the environment.

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the institutions responsible for the election, promotions and nominations of judges in France, Germany and Poland. At the very eginning – in the introduction – the genesis of institutions which are equivalents of the National Council of the Judiciary was presented, starting from the philosophical basis for the idea of the independence of courts and judges, through international regulations to the constitutions of individual states. The main part was divided into 3 sections: a brief description of the judiciary, the composition of the institution responsible for the election of judges and the manner of appointing its members, and the competence of the council and the manner of appointing judges. Each of these issues was divided by the selected countries, thanks to which it will be possible to get a clear picture of how these institutions work in individual countries. As a summary, conclusions about how the principle of judiciary independence is met in selected countries, and whether meeting this principle depends exclusively on legal framework.

The article presents the status of an assessor in the court of law in accordance with applicable legal provisions. For the needs of the study, the most important competences of the assessor were chosen in relation to the principle of judicial independence and independence of the courts. Additionally, the most important stages of shaping the institution of the assessor from 1928 were also approximated.

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.

In 1942 the American military authorities interned over 120 thousand persons of Japanese ancestry in fear of sabotage on behalf of Japan. In a landmark 1944 case the Supreme Court rehabilitated Fred Korematsu but upheld constitutionality of the wartime laws leading to the internment. As transpired later, there was no evidence of the Japanese-Americans’ forming a fifth-column. The court decision was criticized as unconstitutional and driven by racism. In view of the dissenting judges and commentators it was condemned by the court of history. This article claims that the original decision was justified by the circumstances of the war, including the uncertainties it brought with it. Unless we equip the government with the power of clairvoyance, it has to be able to act, and even err, in emergency. The debate around Korematsu ignored the previous experience of both World Wars in which German fifth columns were active and effective. One such eyewitness account, not known in Western literature, is presented in the article. Modern his-tory confirms that the fifth column as such is a timeless phenomenon. The fear of hybrid wars techniques, justified or not, has led to the reemergence of the fifth column legislation in XXI century, although the range legal instruments intended to contain it is different. It is too early for judges and scholars to speak authorita-tively on behalf of the court of history, for history is still in the making.

Introducing Article 22, section 9b, item 1 into the Personal Income Tax Act of 26 July 1991 using terms that have not been defined in this Act and not specifying the provisions of other acts of law which would become the grounds for defining these terms, thereby creating a normative condition for applying 50% tax-deductible expenses to income arising from activities performed by IT employees, the lawmakers failed to observe the requirement of correct legislation determined by the Constitutional Tribunal in its judgements, creating a law that is vague and imprecise, and gives the entities applying it a sense of uncertainty about whether they apply the provisions of the Personal Income Tax Act correctly.