The publication explores the phenomenology and content of ‘soft law’ in the international
and national law and reveals the designation of ‘soft law’ in protecting the electoral rights of the citizens. ‘Soft law’ is intended to mean optional international documents, most of
which are resolutions of the intergovernmental organisations containing statements, commitments, guidelines, common positions or statements on policy or intentions. ‘Soft law’ documents are usually adopted by the statutory bodies of the international organisations on issues that reflect new problems, tendencies or trends in the field of electoral law, for which there is no political will or the accordance of all the member states in the form of a classical international treaty. When it comes to the content, the ‘soft law’ documents are all kinds of statements, obligations, guidelines, codes of conduct, codes of ethics, guidelines and standards, common positions or statements of policy or intentions.

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.

This paper offers an analysis of a draft bill on Public Documents together with implementing acts. It focuses, in particular, on the key regulations concerning the list of public documents and their classification, on the process of document specimen design as well as on the exclusivity granted to the producer of blank forms of documents of the first category, examining the impact of the analysed regulations on the system of public document security. The analysis leads to a conclusion that the draft bill has some essential drawbacks which may make the law in question inconsistent with EU law and reduce the level of public document security. These drawbacks have been identified and appropriate corrections have been suggested.