In the article The nature and the meaning of the activities of National Coun-cil of the Judiciary we find a historic view leading to creating of this institution. The council arises as result of the reconstruction of the system in Poland and becomes a constitutional body which stands on the guard of the independence of courts and independences of judges. We find a description of the organizational structure of the institution. The Council consists of the persons fulfilling highest functions in judicial institutions nominated by the President of Poland and the group of the outstanding judges appointed in the way of the election. The competences of the Council concern the important and delicate matter of the judging. Therefore the first group of the competences of the Council refers to undertaking actions in relation to judges and candidates on judges. The second group of the competences was determined in laws and concerns undertaking of resolutions, investigating of motions and presenting of candidates on other im-portant posts in State-institutions related to the judicial power. The National Council of the Judiciary in the matter of the own organization has the total au-tonomy and through this has an independent position in the political system of the state. This rule expresses herself mainly in exclusive appointing of various internal commissions. Council committees are teams of council members which are her internal organizational units of the auxiliary character, enabling the effec-tive exercise of constitutional and statutory tasks of the Council.
The presented opinion illustrates the Sejm’s position on the application lodged to the Constitutional Tribunal by the First President of the Supreme Court for an adjudication upon the conformity of the Act of 22nd December 2011 on Amendment of Certain Acts Related to the Implementation of the Budget Act (reference symbol of files K 1/12) to the Constitution. Sponsor deems the regulations retaining in 2012 the levels of judicial remunerations from previous year inconsistent with article 2, article 31(3), article 64(1–2), article 88(1–2), article 216(5), article 219(1–2), article 220(1) and article 221 of the Constitution. Sejm has rejected the sponsor’s claims, concluding that the contested regulations shall be deemed consistent with the Constitution.
In the article premises for hearing a minor are presented, as well as organizational issues related to it. The analysis of the provisions in force leads to the conclusion that the role a psychologist plays in a hearing of a minor is still not adequately appreciated. There are no regulations providing for the obligatory participation of a psychologist in a hearing of a child. It is therefore necessary to change the provisions in this respect, so as to determine the competence of a psychologist in a hearing, establish whether a hearing is held by a single-member court or a court in collegiate composition, where a hearing takes place: in the course of divorce proceedings or before the appeal court. Moreover, the issue of frequency of hearing a minor should be clarified.
The article is an analysis of the institution of opposition to the intention of additional employment or occupation by a judge. Firstly, it is necessary to examine the problem of proper shape of the supervision over courts in the legal system of Poland from the theoretical point of view. The paper focuses on the dependence between the model of administrative supervision adopted in Polish judicial system and the efficiency of courts as well as their perception by the public. The tension that arises in this context involves the simultaneous consideration within the framework of administrative supervision of judicial independence and the efficiency of the court’s activity, the separation of the judiciary from other authorities and the need for its co-operation with the legislature and the executive power. Then, it is examined how opposition to the intention of additional employment or occupation by a judge is conducted.
The issue of judicial independence in Poland has deservedly attracted attention in academic circles in recent years. In this article, I address this issue by examining how the stress test of constitutional democracy proceeded within the Polish judiciary. I argue that developments in Poland exposed weakness in an important constitutional doctrine of judicial independence. Therefore, I seek to complicate the picture by bringing to light some older developments, pre-2015, but also by referring to a psychological experiment dealing with false beliefs (the Sally-Anne test). This article is an attempt to show what lessons can be drawn from Poland’s democratic backsliding, focusing particularly on why the issue of judicial independence failed to generate electoral change after 2015 and how the legalists’ reliance on legal proceedings proved ineffective. The concept of constitutional fracking is introduced to show how the Polish Allied Right ruling bloc exploited inconsistencies in the concept of judicial independence.
In 1944, Red Army of the Soviet Union entered the Polish territory. At that time (July 1944) in Moscow, on Stalin’s order, a group of “Polish” communists established Polish Committee of National Liberation or PKWN. PKWN pretended to have a role of the Polish government. Legal Polish government was in exile in London during the whole Second World War. PKWN established, among others, the courts. After the Second World War it was important for the „Polish” Communists that the changes which they had introduced were not perceived as revolutionary. For camouflage the process of their entering into power was supposed to appear legal. That was they formally retained most of the pre-war legal acts. It was characteristic of the changes made in the law in the early years of the People’s Republic that their purpose was to persecute the political opposition, be it real or imaginary, and to take revenge on the soldiers of the Polish Home Army - a military resistance organisation, on the activists of the Second World War Polish Underground Sate and also on the state officials of pre-war Poland. The basics acts which substantively shaped the law in this respect were issued from 1944.
PL
W 1944 roku Armia Czerwona Związku Socjalistycznych Republik Radzieckich wkroczyła na ziemie polskie. Wówczas (lipiec 1944) w Moskwie, na Kremlu, pod dyktando Stalina [na rozkaz Stalina] grupa „polskich” komunistów powołała Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (PKWN). PKWN faktycznie uzurpował sobie rolę rządu polskiego. Legalny rząd polski znajdował się przez całą wojnę na uchodźstwie [na obczyźnie] w Londynie. PKWN między innymi organizował sądy. Komunistom w Polsce po II wojnie światowej zależało, by dokonane przez nich zmiany nie nosiły zewnętrznych cech rewolucji. Dla kamuflażu zdobycie przez nich władzy miało mieć pozory legalizmu. Dlatego też formalnie zachowali większość aktów prawnych z okresu przedwojennego. Cechą charakterystyczną zmian w prawie w najwcześniejszym okresie Polski Ludowej było to, że ukierunkowane one były na represjonowanie opozycji politycznej rzeczywistej lub wyimaginowanej, ewentualnie ukierunkowane były na dokonanie odwetu na żołnierzach podziemnej Armii Krajowej, na działaczach Polskiego Państwa Podziemnego z II wojny światowej, także na funkcjonariuszach państwowych okresu przedwojennego. Podstawowe akty prawa w tym zakresie wydawane były od 1944.
Research on royal courts in the Late Middle Ages in Poland has a relatively short tradition. Polish medievalists studying the period of the Late Middle Ages have been from the very beginning concentrated, first and foremost, on discussing the genealogy of successive magnate families, politics of monarchs in relation to lands and royal subjects they managed, problems of agricultural and economic nature in the Polish state at that time, matters of church and monasteries and, most of all, wars and broadly understood political sphere. It should be noted here that the political, cultural and court related problems were most often situated at the margins of their interests. Naturally, this does not mean that these issues have not been studied as a number of works has been written by i.e. Aleksander Gieysztor, Małgorzata Wilska – which showed to a wider group of historians how important it was to study the cultural and social issues, and what a significant role they played in the context of political history – but they, however, still leave a certain deficiency in this area of research.
The participation of courts in law making has undoubtedly been happening for many years already; in the Czech Republic, we started to talk about the issue relatively recently, it was first explicitly mentioned in the academic literature mostly reflecting the impact of German authors, at the beginning of this century. The starting point of this article is the fact, that courts participate in law making when the law is applied against the clear diction of the law, when courts find in the legal texts one of many possible loopholes. The fact is that courts can reveal relatively arbitrarily another ones, and furthermore, courts often participate in law making without pronouncing any loophole expressively, namely under a situation, where the text of the regulation is entirely clear and indisputable. As it can be seen from the examples mentioned above, the boundaries or limits of such activity of courts complete are shifted permanently and increasingly and when such activity is undertaken by the supreme judicial authority or by the Constitutional Court, there can be found no means for remedy. There is no doubt, that the above mentioned tendency has become reality, however, there is no doubt, that courts should abide rather by the principle of self-restraint, otherwise, one of the main principle of the legal state will be threatened permanently, and that is legal certainty.
This paper submits that in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, „this merry bond” (1.3.169) becomes the central artery through which the fates of two friends, Antonio and Bassanio, become intertwined, and Shylock’stragically falls, thereby illustrating how this written evidence functions to disassemble contractual relationships, rather than serve as a prohibition against the commercial corruption, as provided in the Fraudulent Conveyance Act (1571). The essay explores the nature of settlement negotiations and the disparate conditions of bargaining powers by the parties — those which represent the state’s interests and those which represent individual interests. Here, this analysis focuses on the attempts in the play to devalue the trustworthiness of written evidence, particularly contracts, presented at a time where the early modern courts emphasizes the reliability of such evidence, and demonstrates how interpersonal communications intervene as vital legal vehicles within this society.
People appear in the courtroom when they engage in various disputes with others and have diverse problems of their own. The courts are supposed to provide them with a space where they can obtain justice, in accordance with the law. It is no less important, however, that while pursuing this goal the courts should deal with people’s problems in a way that makes the people willing to accept and comply with their decisions. The central issue defining the scope of this empirical study was the question of what element of the construct of procedural justice promotes behaviors associated with legitimacy and compliance with the law in the Polish judicial system. The author set out to investigate what identified procedural justice in Polish legal culture and what variables pertaining to the context of legal proceedings it was related to. The sample consisted of 115 individuals taking part in civil court proceedings conducted in civil divisions of district courts. Based on analyses performed on research results it can be concluded that behaviors associated with legitimacy and compliance with the law in the Polish judicial system is determined by the sense of fairness experienced in the courtroom, whose structure is built by experiences such as being given the opportunity to speak, being treated with respect, the judge’s impartiality, the comprehensibility of the language used and procedures applied in the courtroom, and the sense of influence on the final outcome of the proceedings.
Jury courts existed in all the partitioning countries, and after 1918 they were to operate in all parts of the reborn Polish state. Their activities were suspended indefinitely in the former Prussian and Russian partitions. Only the former Austrian partition operated until 1938, when the Sanacja authorities liquidated them. Jury courts adjudicated only criminal cases –concerning the most severe crimes and political crimes. Recently, more attention has been devoted to jury courts and the participation of the social factor in the judiciary in Polish science, but so far, no publications in English have appeared on this subject. In the article, the author presents a short description of the jury’s activity in Poland and discusses three hypotheses about the activity of the jury in Polish science.
The role of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the management of cases and disputes in Nigeria and across the globe cannot be overemphasized. The judicial arm of the government is the arm responsible for interpretation of laws in Nigeria and the judiciary’s role in preserving the rights of citizens across Nigeria also cannot be overemphasized. It ensures that the society is stable in the face of insta-bility and ensures that lawlessness is not maintained. The judiciary ensures that laws made by the legislature are obeyed by ensuring that those who violate the provisions of any established laws are punished. In doing all these, it has been established that the system of administering justice in our courts in Nigeria is extremely slow. Considering the foregoing, alternative dispute resolution as a means of settling disputes has been of tremendous help in easing the hardship of getting cases resolved through the court system. This paper examines ways through which alternative dispute resolution has assisted the Nigerian judicial system and the need to use alternative dispute resolution the more in order to ensure that number of cases handled by courts are drastically reduced. Recommendations are made at the end of the research.
The monograph deals with judicial review of public administration in European countries. It provides an analysis of the models of this review. In this context, the following courts are distinguished: 1) special administrative courts, separated from common courts; 2) common courts or administrative courts integrated with common courts; 3) specialized administrative courts, separate from common courts. a characteristic of these courts are given, to show the diversity of each of these models and the transformations occurring in them.
The aim of the paper is the presentation of new legal regulations regarding corporate restructurization and challenges of their implementation to avoid the regulatory risk. The fundamental study method applied for the purpose is the analysis of legal regulations, literature study and empirical analysis with the support of available secondary study. The study shows that in the current legal environment the potential of the institution whose aim is the restructurization of the indebtedness is very low. The result of the above mentioned state is ineffective the bankruptcy and reorganization law. The law is to cause results planned by the legislative body in the social, political and economic reality. If through the law states planned by the legislative body are delivered and assumed to be the goals of regulations we speak of the law as being effective in a finite manner. The bankruptcy and reorganization law is economically dysfunctional. Running a business is a survival school for an entrepreneur. Meanwhile effective regulations assuring the restructurization of a business person preventing their bankruptcy constitute material determinants of the success of the entrepreneurship. New regulations effective as of 1 January 2016 are to assure the qualitative change in the restructuring proceedings.
PL
Celem artykułu jest prezentacja nowych regulacji prawnych dotyczących restrukturyzacji przedsiębiorstwa oraz wyzwań związanych z ich wdrożeniem w celu uniknięcia ryzyka regulacyjnego. Podstawową metodą badawczą wykorzystaną na potrzeby jest analiza regulacji prawnych, studia literaturowe oraz analiza empiryczna z wykorzystaniem dostępnych badań wtórnych. Badania wykazują, że w obecnym stanie prawnym potencjał instytucji, których celem jest restrukturyzacja zadłużenia w Polsce jest bardzo niski. Pochodną powyższego stanu jest nieskuteczne prawo upadłościowe i naprawcze. Prawo powinno wywoływać zaplanowane przez prawodawcę skutki w rzeczywistości społecznej, politycznej i gospodarczej. Jeżeli poprzez prawo realizowane są stany zamierzone przez ustawodawcę i uznane za cele regulacji, mówimy że prawo jest skuteczne finistycznie. Prawo upadłościowe i naprawcze jest dysfunkcjonalne gospodarczo. Prowadzenie działalności gospodarczej jest szkołą przetrwania dla przedsiębiorcy. Tymczasem sprawnie działające regulacje zapewniające restrukturyzację przedsiębiorcy zapobiegając jego upadłości stanowią istotne determinanty sukcesu przedsiębiorczości. Zmianę jakościową postępowań restrukturyzacyjnych mają zapewnić nowe regulacje, które wejdą w życie od 1 stycznia 2016r.
The article presents the genesis (1917) and difficult fates of the Congregation of Benedictine Nuns Missionaries and their charges with changing political totalitarian systems. The Congregation shared the history of our country in the East. The way, that a young Benedictine Community paced indefatigably ahead to worship God and serve their neighbours, is presented briefly. In 1920–1939 our monastic family after being thrown out of Biała Cerkiew near Kijów rooted in Wołyń. During the World War II Hitler’s occupation and the Soviet aggression on Wołyń Province brought enormous material losses, deprived the nuns of having a roof over their heads, withdrew the possibility of fulfilling statutory tasks, but there was still hope which the nuns made use of. They had to leave Eastern borderland of II RP occupied by Bolsheviks and they were looking together with their orphans for shelter in the central part of Poland. German defeat did not mean triumph of victory in our country, after the war the Soviet Union started strengthening people’s authority in Poland. It began the struggle with Church by employing as secret workers to cooperate with people belonging to Church and Polish nation. It continued until 1989. After each disaster the Congregation had the strength of spirit and revived again.
Justice authorities are one of the main pillars on which rests the basis of the functioning of most other institutions within a state. As is known the justice authorities, but that within their authority to have the preservation of public peace and order, have and fighting and preventing crime in general. Institutions that have special role in the fight against crime are numerous, but we have dealt only some of the key institutions involved in combating and preventing criminal phenomena in general and in particular in Kosovo. Ranging from the role of police in preventing and fighting crime as a phenomenon of harmful and dangerous to society then continued with the role and importance of the state attorney in fighting and preventing crime in Kosovo, to continue in the role and importance of courts in the prevention of crime. Also, is treated the protection of human rights in general within the legal system in Kosovo, addressing the issue of respect for human rights and the possible limits of institutions that have officials in respect to human rights in general.
The general public demand for openness in the conduct of investigative actions and trial participants’ work is successfully satisfied with the introduction of new technologies that contribute to the establishment of objective disclosure of certain offenses. This article discusses the compatibility of admitting witness testimony through videoconferences with the concept of governance in judicial proceedings, comparing the approaches of the UAE and Jordanian legal systems, with the ultimate purpose of highlighting the advantages of using these modern methods. The article defines videoconferences, the practical and legal reasons for relying upon them and uses examples from the Emirati, Jordanian, and French systems, discusses the extent to which videoconferences are compatible with the concept of governance in the dispensation of judgments. The article suggests that the Emirati and Jordanian legislature develop explicit rules to regulate the process of electronic witness testimony paying attention to the use of new technological and security trends.
South Africa and Serbia are emergent democracies that both suffered under authoritarian governments and bothengaged in political violence to gain freedom. In the post-democratic dispensations in both countries, corruption, accompanied bynepotism, escalated to such an extent that it negatively impacts on social life and good order. The opportunity for a comparativestudy between the two countries is based on common ground embedded in quite a number of characteristics: oppressiveness,economic disparity and underdevelopment of certain population groups, misuse of powers by the ruling elite, impunity and apparentlack of political will to root out corruptive practices. The 2013-Corruption Perception Index ranked both countries 72nd out of 177countries according the prevalence of corruption with a CPI score of 42 out of 100 (0=most corrupt and 100=cleanest). Datareveal that both governments are not open and transparent enough and that freedom of the media is often impeded by formalproscriptions. The police and courts through bribery, followed by government officials involved in wrangling with state contracts,are singled out as the most corrupt institutions by both samples. Corruption is also rife when senior government appointmentsin are made and it transpires that not enough steps are being taken by both countries to counteract corruption. Apparently, corruptemployees gain impunity through protection by government officials. Whether any anti-corruption units would be successfulin their endeavours to root out corruption remains unfathomable because of political interference. Citizens are, however, thoroughlyaware of allegations made from time to time regarding the bribery of politicians and government officials. Corruption is tangentiallymore widespread among Serbian police and court officials compared to South Africa. The recently introduced hotline (0800-071-71)for corruption in the civil service next to speedy criminal trials may do much as preventitive measures.
The article presents the state of affairs in Poland after 1945. As a result of the agreement of the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) at the Yalta Conference in Crimea (February 1945), the states of Central and Eastern Europe were handed over to Stalin, who promised to hold free elections. However, even though the (non-communist) pre-war Polish law was initially still in force in order to keep up appearances, new models were brought to Poland from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which were to be introduced by the communists. The courts were subjected to the ruling Communist Party. People without any legal education were appointed to the position of a judge to carry out the orders of the Communist Party. A similar process was carried out in regard to prosecutors. Investigations were carried out, torture was used, and people were tried in secret, especially in political cases. At the time, the task of the courts was to serve as a tool of repression, not of justice.
PL
W artykule przedstawiono sytuację w Polsce po 1945 r., kiedy w wyniku umowy Wielkiej Trójki (Roosevelta, Churchilla, Stalina) w Jałcie na Krymie (luty 1945 r.) Europa Środkowo-Wschodnia została oddana Stalinowi. Stalin obiecał wolne wybory, ale mimo że początkowo dla pozoru obowiązywało (niekomunistyczne) przedwojenne prawo polskie, to ze Związku Socjalistycznych Republik Radzieckich napływały do Polski nowe wzorce, które mieli wprowadzać komuniści. Sądy uzależniono od panującej partii komunistycznej. Na sędziów powoływano ludzi bez wykształcenia prawniczego, którzy mieli wykonywać polecenia partii komunistycznej. Podobnie było z prokuratorami. Prowadzono śledztwa, stosowano tortury, sądzono ludzi tajnie, zwłaszcza w sprawach politycznych. Zadaniem sądów było wówczas stosowanie represji, a nie wymierzanie sprawiedliwości.
This article discusses the evolution of the Polish Constitution of 1997 as well as of the constitutional practice under the populist government (2015–2023). A brief presentation of the recent Report, submitted by the Polish Association of Constitutional Law (Part 1) is followed by consideration of the nature of the so-called abusive constitutionalism (Part 2). Although it is undisputed that the Polish version of abusive constitutionalism has heavily affected the political reality of Poland, it could not affect the validity of the original Constitution. The new reality is simply unconstitutional in many aspects and, therefore, remedial measures are necessary to restore the constitutional rule. Part 3 is focused on the assessment of the nature and scope of deformations which affected each of the three branches of government. It is concluded (Part 4) that the intensity of remedial measures must remain in a reasonable balance to the intensity of deformation of the each of the institutions or organs of the State. The widest scope of “remedial discretion” is applicable in reforming of those institutions (such as the National Judicial Council, the “new” chambers of the Supreme Court), and the Constitutional Court) whose constitutional identity has been damaged in an irrevocable manner.
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