The purpose of this article is to conduct an axiological and legal analysis of the most popular model of participatory (civic) budgeting in Poland (the plebiscite model). According to the adopted hypothesis, some legal and practical solutions concerning the plebiscite model strengthen public values, while others weaken them. In the research, the combination of three coherent methods was used: (i) a literature analysis, (ii) the dogmatic and legal method, and (iii) interviews conducted with municipal officials responsible for the organization of participatory budgeting (PB), municipal councillors and residents (BP participants). The research covers six Polish cities: Sopot, Gdańsk, Białystok, Kraków, Opole and Warsaw. The axiological and legal analysis of the principles and mode of BP was made using a catalogue of nodal public values, namely values with a significant number of related values (including: human dignity, sustainability, citizen involvement, openness, secrecy, compromise, integrity, and robustness). The research leads to the conclusion that the plebiscite BP in Poland is not axiologically neutral, its principles and mode have both a positive and negative impact on particular nodal public values. The scale of negative impact is definitely greater than the scale of the positive one, although, obviously, the assessment in this respect, even if supported by arguments and scientific analysis, will always remain at least partly subjective.
In the practice of the Polish local and regional government, participatory budgeting has been used since 2011, and was the first one introduced in Sopot. It is a form of consultation with residents on the allocation of a portion of the budgetary expenses of a unit of the local or regional government, most often a city. This is a special type of procedure in which residents participate in the creation of the budget of a city (municipality), thereby jointly determining the distribution of a certain pool of public funds. In the first years of the application of participatory budgeting in Poland, a very general legal authorization was used to allow consultations with residents. It was only after several years of grassroots use of participatory budgeting that it was regulated in the Polish legal system in the Act of January 11, 2018 amending certain acts. Since then, it has become a mandatory form of public consultation in cities with district rights. The procedure for participatory budgeting in municipalities is generally regulated in Article 5a of the Act on the commune-level local government. The application of participatory budgeting in Poland has resulted in an extensive case law of administrative courts, hence the purpose of this paper is to determine the group of those entitled to participate in public consultations on participatory budgeting in light of the law and the case law of administrative courts. Using the dogmatic-legal method enabled a positive evaluation of the adopted research hypothesis that the provisions of local law that designate the group of entities entitled to participate in participatory budgeting procedure is restrictive compared to the provisions of the applicable statute.
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