The issue of the rule of law as a criterion for the action of public administration bodies has not yet been the subject of wider doctrinal reflection. The reason for this state of affairs is probably the rather sparing reference by public administration bodies to the rule of law as a basis for their decisions. Meanwhile, the obligation imposed on the authorities in Article 7 of the Code of Administrative Procedure should be treated as one of their fundamental duties in ongoing administrative proceedings. The present study focuses on signalling only some of the problems related to the notion of the rule of law on the grounds of general administrative procedure, indicating the ambiguity of this phrase and the related various understandings of it. The conclusions should be regarded as an invitation to discuss this undoubtedly complex issue.

Management control should be understood as the totality of measures taken to ensure that public objectives and tasks are carried out in a lawful, efficient, economical and timely manner. As a result, this control is therefore intended to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire Polish public administration. Of great importance in the control process is the stage of risk identification, as perceiving a given risk will allow to effectively counteract it. According to management control standards, an annual report in the form of a statement is recommended for this purpose. To facilitate control, the Ministry of Finance has drawn up a template that managers of units can use when assessing the state of management control. In this article, the author not only characterizes management control, but also analyzes the statements made by public finance sector entities. This was to verify whether public finance sector entities not only understand the objectives of the introduction of management control, but also whether they correctly complete the provided template of the declaration, thus contributing to the effective operation of public administration.

The restoration of public service in Poland has been a major factor contributing to a more intense research into the legal nature of employment relationships in public administration. The framework for the debate, in legal terms, is determined by the concept of the civil service law, whose objective scope and place in the legal system are not universally accepted. Therefore, the civil service law is treated as part of the labour or administrative laws, with views in this respect demarcated primarily by a researcher’s field of specialisation.
This paper is a voice in the debate about the attribution of the civil servic law to a branch of law. The basis of entering into a legal relationship is assumed to decide its classification to the labour or civil service law. Hence, the contract of employment, designation, appointment, and selection are analysed as acts creating the legal relationships of employment. The research implies the civil service law is part of the labour law, while the relationships of employment it governs are special, given the type of work provided by those subject to the civil service law.

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.

The workplace, a certain kind of organisation (which consists of people and, therefore, is social in nature), is crucial for perceiving labour law from the perspective of public administration. Put simply, if one wants to view the fulfilment of tasks or public functions within the realm of labour law, one always needs to bear in mind that although one might be referring to ‘the employer’, the discussion, in fact, refers to the workplace, with the employer being a certain ‘organ’ or emanation of the workplace. This reflection fills me with particular joy as a researcher because it necessitates the appreciation of the human ommunity at the workplace despite the considerable reluctance of the Polish labour law doctrine to accept the workplace as a human community and an administrative-legal construct of social organisation. I believe that the workplace must be recognised as a key institution in the theory of labour law and this is beyond any doubt. The social consequences of failing to recognise the workplace can be dramatic. Moreover, in a situation where other human communities are scarce, the importance of the community of the workplace (especially if one remembers its relative stability) turns out to be fundamental.

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 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.

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the legislator decided to increase the capacity of public administration to operate. Therefore, the provisions of the special act introduced additional tools for the voivode. As a result, a special type of voivode’s „command” was introduced into the legal system. He can now outsource activities to selected authorities and entities in his voivodeship. The paper attempts to locate this new competence in the catalog of legal forms of the voivode’s activity and an attempt to perform a systemic assessment of the compliance of this instrument with the existing models of administrative law.

Mediation in the administrative procedure is a new institution that provides a chance for an improved perception of public administration, yet it also gives rise to a range of doubts. The latter spring chiefly, though not solely, from the nature of administrative control. The principles of the rule of law, objective law, and voluntary mediation, which may be taken an improper advantage of, contrary to the legislator’s intentions, are also identified as barriers.
Analysis of the issue implies that administrative proceedings leave room for mediation. Whether it will fulfil expectations, however, largely depends on the attitudes of parties and administrative authorities, or their employees, to be precise, for whom mediation is undoubtedly both a processual and mental challenge.
The introduction of mediation to the Code of Administrative Procedure is to be applauded, mainly from the perspective of inducing citizens’ trust in public authorities. Mediation may also prove an effective instrument of eliminating conflicts in administration and thus contribute to reducing the caseload to be heard by administrative courts.
It is important, though, for this opportunity to be taken proper advantage of and for the transformation of administration from controlling to mediating and more friendly to subjects administered to continue. This is a trend that deserves to be followed not only in Polish but also other legislations.

The purpose of the article is to present selected aspects of the issue of legal (administrative and legal) impossibility and to propose structural solutions that can contribute to reducing the scale of that negative phenomenon. Firstly, the article refers to the causes of legal impossibility and its form. Next, a structural solution that has been used and verified in developed administrations, that is, the accountability of administration, was presented, and its application to Polish administrative law was proposed. The study includes the use of, among other things, the method of transferring management solutions to administrative law. In the paper, a thesis was formulated that a systemic and correct introduction of the institution of the accountability of administration into the Polish system of administrative law (in the form of proper structural norms) may significantly contribute to reducing the scope of legal impossibility. The reflections presented in the article are provided in two dimensions – one that is formal and dogmatic and another that concerns legal realism.

This article concerns the problem associated with the nature of the institution of a petition for reconsideration of the case in view of regulation No 16 of the Administrative Procedur Code in the version before the amendment dated 3 December 2010, which entered into force on 11 April 2011. Despite the amendment, to this day the provision is the source of many disputes, which is reflected in a very non-uniform judicial practice. On the basis of this regulation can be observed, how defective constructed legal provisions affect the administration of justice and the application of the law by creating situations in which the courts take over the functions of law making. On the selected example is shown, how one decision of the Supreme Court, being the basis of decisions of courts of appeal, causes that victims defective administrative decision are charged with the responsibility for legislative errors. Knowledge of the matter, which is the subject of this publication, is extremely important for all practitioners as well as theorists of the law because of the importance of the issues, which accompany the main theme. The work is based on an analysis of the concept of finality and validity of administration decision and depth on theoretical consideration and extensive discussion of the judicial practice of administrative courts, civil courts and Constitutional Tribunal.

The following article provides an introduction to the issues of legal and political organization of the Roman provinces in the area of conquered territory in the time of the Roman Empire (I-III A.D). It outlines the administrative division of the empire, the relationship between them and Rome. An efficiency and well-organized management of the huge land using structured magistrate, allowed the Romans to create a world Empire which prevailed over a thousand square kilometers. The most important tasks of princeps was to ensure external and internal security of the Empire by structured and efficiency administration, as well as a guarantee of the proper/ correct jurisdiction. Not without significance was the tax collection which enriched the imperial treasury and testified to the power of the ruler. The Roman state was based on provinces, colonies and municipalities, where the last one were the primary form of local autonomy. The organization of official structure was largely modeled on the system of the Republican Rome, while respecting local traditions at the same time. Although their dependence, the residents still had full decision-making in their own affairs.

The article deals with legal education in the Duchy of Warsaw (1807–1815), which was a transitory period between a feudal and modern state. The urgent need for institutional education of a state personnel resulted from existence of legal provisions stemming from several legal orders, divergence in qualifications of personnel in administration and judiciary, as well as a necessity for efficient implementation f Napoleonic law. Those circumstances were precisely diagnosed by the minister of justice. He initiated courses of law followed by the School of Law and School of Administration. As the Duchy’s territory was enlarged, legal teaching had place also at the university in Cracow. It seems that although the state existed for only a short period, a more or less cohesive governmental concept of legal education’s role existed. It was to serve mainly the development of the state and this utilitarian goal dominated. It is worth reminding that those first Polish endeavours in the field of modern legal education took place at the time of a public finance crisis. Although majority of income was devoted to military needs and many projects were put off until later, authorities noticed that for an efficient governing of a state a well-educated personnel is needed. At that time this belief was not common.

In the judgement C-403/16 Soufiane El Hassani v. Polish Foreign Office European Court of Justice noticed that provisions of internal law cannot limit the right to judical-review established in art. 32 par. 3 of Visa Code. The regulation must be interpreted in context of EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Meanwhile the sentence was answer to question of Polish Supreme Administrative Court and it arose under Administrative Courts Proceedings Act which prohibits performing judicial review over visa decisions. The aim of the paper is to explain that judicial review at those issues may be effectively performed by common courts, without damaging visa-applicants rights. The possibility comes from wide definition of civil case in code of civil procedure and attribution of common courts in some public administration cases.

The paper shows an American model of the participation of the society in the administration of justice. It is crucial for the Polish discussion about the involvement of public factor in that manner. The analysis is divided between the constitutional right to trial by jury and the institution of justices of the peace, which is unique for the Anglo-Saxon legal system. Research conducted here is the result of a detailed analysis of the case law of the Supreme Court of the United States and selected state courts that shaped the views of the American academia on this issue. Hopefully, this brief study will help to reform the Polish judicial process.

Academics and faculty members are entangled in many interests. Selfless science for cognitive purposes is a thing of the past. There is a constant game of the power over knowledge. Apart from scientists, many entities with various interests are participants of the game. They are: politicians, officials, academic administration, research sponsors, accreditation agencies, publishers, resort scientific institutes, industry, business. The scientists themselves sometimes work for the truth and sometimes they work for profit; they create knowledge which is public property, or when they are employed commercially, e.g. by the industry, they create private knowledge. This paper presents five factors which may contribute to restricting the cognitive autonomy of the scientists.

This paper deals with the activity of the public administration of the Czech Republic. It analyses the structure and mechanisms of the functioning of the institutions of public administration and self-government of the Czech Republic. It appeared not so long ago that responsible persons were held accountable for wrong decisions – of both technical and political nature. In some cases, these decisions were also used against responsible persons at all levels. This research is based on the analysis of the present Czech legal norms and their application in the decisions made by local administration.