Administrative economic law and public economic law – perspective of the Polish science of law

Abstract

After the transformation of the political and economic system at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Polish science of law has developed two concepts for capturing legal norms reflecting the state interference with economic activities – administrative economic law and public economic law. Administrative economic law is defined as a set of norms governing the position and situation of public administration bodies, established to define the status of economic entities, it focuses mainly on relations between public administration bodies and private economic operators (entrepreneurs), where the former are (in principle) empowered to define the legal position of economic operators. Public economic law is a set of legal norms governing how the state and its bodies influence the economy. It deploys both “hard” and “soft” strategies to influence the economy. The fundamental differences between administrative economic law and public economic law refer to issues such as the scope of both sets of legal norms and their status within the legal system. After 1989, the concepts of administrative economic law and public economic law in Polish science of law have been competing. Nowadays, public economic has prevailed, as it better fits the Polish economic system defined in Art. 20 of the Polish Constitution.   Keywords: administrative economic law, public economic law, economic law, economic activity, Polish law, branch of law.