The Evolution of Modern Standards of Academic Freedoms In Poland

Abstract

The various forms of academic freedom are an integral and necessary component of modern academia. This does not mean, however, that they can be easily framed in static terms. Being closely connected with all academic life, those forms, as it were, are intrinsically subject to the same constraints and the pressures of the environment as the university itself. Another difficulty in precisely defining this phenomenon stems from terminological ambiguity. Additionally, both levels of the primary sources of the law are crucial here, i.e. the Constitution in the first place and the so-called “ordinary” laws as secondary sources. This fact dictates the research assumptions and structure of this study. The objective is to analyse and evaluate the Polish regulations shaping the sphere of broadly-understood academic freedom with a view to presenting the manner of regulation and the legal approach to modern “academic freedom packages” in the historical perspective of their evolution, starting with the interwar period. Capturing the trends and directions of legislative changes makes it possible to define and verify the current catalogue of academic freedoms included in the so-called Act 2.0. In order to achieve this research goal, dogmatic, normative and historical-legal methods are employed.