Polish Jurisprudence Research Articles

The essence and objectives of criminal punishment. An outline of the position of the Polish jurisprudence (1919–1989)

Przedmiotem artykułu są koncepcje polskich przedstawicieli nauki prawa w zakresie teorii kary, które powstały w okresie Polski międzywojennej (1919–1939) oraz Polski Ludowej (1945–1989). Przedstawiono w nim koncepcje polskich uczonych oraz wnioski płynące z ich rozważań nad istotą kary kryminalnej i jej celami. Wskazano, które koncepcje teoretyczne znalazły swój wyraz w przepisach kodeksów karnych z 1932 i 1969 r. Na koniec oceniono stan badań nad teoriami kary w Polsce XX wieku i ukazano dalsze perspektywy badawcze.

LEGAL DISPUTES OVER THE JUDICIARY: AN ELEMENT OF THE POLISH CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

This article is an attempt to outline and explain the essence of disputes on the legal solutions adopted in the field of the functioning of the judiciary in Poland after 2015, which have been subject to critical assessment by international bodies and representatives of Polish jurisprudence. The constitutional crisis in Poland concerns the functioning of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, common and administrative courts, and the National Council of the Judiciary. The last one is not an organ of the judiciary but its constitutional powers concern the judiciary, and the changes which have been made in the method of appointing its members constitute one of the essential elements of the constitutional crisis in Poland. Therefore, to show the complexity of the problem more fully, the article will discuss legislative activities, the content of amendments to legal acts, and the consequences brought about by introducing defective regulations into the legal order of the Third Republic of Poland, both at the national and international level.

Zygmunt Ziembiński’s concept of the legal norm from a structuralist perspective

In the article I present the concept of the legal norm of conduct proposed by Zygmunt Ziembiński, situating it in the context of the structuralist research attitude – a methodological approach dominant in the Polish theory of law in the period when this key element of Ziembiński’s theory of law was created and shaped (the 1970s and 1980s). I illustrate individual fragments of the presented concept with selected quotations that are representative of the structuralist research approach. In my view, structuralism makes it possible to understand both the overwhelming influence ofZiembiński’s concept of the norm on the Polish legal theory of the second half of the twentieth century, as well as to explain the causes of the controversies that this concept provoked in some representatives of Polish jurisprudence. I also draw attention to the evolution of the concept in question, including the weakening of its structuralist overtones in the last years of the Professor’s scientific work. An example that exemplifies this tendency is the concept of competence norm.

The Court’s Interference with Contracts by Supplying and Converting the Contractual Terms

Most modern legal systems have been searching for a legal measure that would help to imply omitted terms as well as rescue the validity of unsuccessfully concluded agreements, and they found such a solution in the concept of supplementary interpretation of contract, an example of which is conversio actus iuridici. The tendencies visible in genere prove that whenever the law provides for too rigorous requirements for private ordering, the idea to supplement, imply, or convert contracts occurs. The presented comparative legal perspective is of great importance for Polish jurisprudence, which generally rejects the concept of supplementary interpretation of contracts, but accepts conversio actus iuridici. The analysis presented in this paper encourages representatives of Polish jurisprudence to wider adoption of the idea of supplementary interpretation of contracts, following the example of foreign legal orders.

Abortion Law and Human Rights in Poland: The Closing of the Jurisprudential Horizon

On 22 October 2020, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland ruled that an abortion due to foetal impairment was unconstitutional. This article discusses the context of this controversial ruling as well as its main tenets, focusing on the interpretation of the human rights proffered by the Tribunal and on the rule of law concerns raised by the Tribunal’s decision. Against the backdrop of a brief history of the legal regulation of abortion in Poland since 1945, the article offers a critical assessment of the human rights framework used in the Polish abortion debate. Based on a close reading of the Tribunal’s ruling and the dissenting opinions, the article points out the particularities in the Tribunal’s engagement with international law and human rights jurisprudence. The article argues that the Tribunal’s decision is yet another symptom of the crisis in which the rule of law in Poland has found itself since 2015. It bears evidence to the closing of the jurisprudential horizon caused by the political change which has been taking place in Poland since 2015, consisting of the reduction of the role of international human rights debates as a reference in Polish constitutional jurisprudence. The ruling is therefore a portent of Poland’s future compliance with its international commitments in human rights matters.

The Concept of Wrongfulness in the Tort Law – An Analysis of the Polish Jurisprudence

In Polish law, the prevailing opinion is that wrongfulness in tort law occurs when a given behaviour contradicts the norms included in the provisions of law and the principles of social coexistence. The latter notion is understood as non-legal norms of behaviour existing in the society, including mainly moral norms. The aim of the study is to present how the concept of wrongfulness is interpreted in the jurisprudence of Polish common courts and whether the concepts expressed in the Polish doctrine and jurisprudence of the Supreme Court actually ‘translate’ in any way into the jurisprudence of these courts. It is interesting to examine in which factual circumstances wrongfulness is in jurisprudence related to violation of principles of social coexistence. To achieve this aim the article will present analysis of judgments of common courts available on the Internet Portal of the Jurisprudence of Common Courts - the most representative and biggest public available database of Polish jurisprudence. The article focuses on those behaviours which the jurisprudence of common courts usually classifies as contrary to the principles of social coexistence: inflicting deliberate damage on other entities and failing to ensure adequate safety measures that could protect those entities from damage.

Pozaustawowe kontratypy - zarys problematyki

This article is devoted to analyse outside statutory of factors excluding criminal responsibility conception. Nowadays Polish jurisprudence quite widely accepts this one, not based on act conception. Only a few notice the shortcomings of outside of statutory factors excluding criminal responsibility. Nevertheless, not many make this topic on a deeper reflection. The article attempts to collect the views on this subject in existing polish jurisprudence. It should be noted, that this views are fragmented in numerous articles, books and commentaries. Therefore, an assessment of the concept of outside statutory of factors excluding criminal responsibility which releate to: the function of criminal law, nullum crimen sine lege rule, the separation of powers rule, protection the victim rights and the contents of art. 17 k.p.k. Furthermore, the problem of definiteness constituent elements of outside statutory of the factors excluding criminal responsibility was outlined. It was also presented what behaviors qualify as outside statutory of the factors excluding criminal responsibility by individual representatives of jurisprudence. As a result, the validity of conception of outside statutory of the factors excluding criminal responsibility seems to be fairly questionable.

The Legal Nature of the Judgement Issued Pursuant to Article 425 of the Code of Commercial Companies: Declaratory or Constitutive?

<p>For many years there has been a dispute in the field of commercial law concerning the nature of the ruling issued as part of an action for annulment of a resolution of the general meeting under Article 425 of the Code of Commercial Companies (hereinafter: CCC). The multitude of both studies of the representatives of the doctrine and opinions expressed in the court decisions, allows this dispute to be included in two opposing theses, which, together with the arguments for their support, the authors presented in this article. The supporters of the declarative character of the judgement indicate the necessity to carry out a linguistic, systemic and historical interpretation of the norm, as well as to refer to Article 58 of the Civil Code and adopt the indicated model of absolute nullity. Part of the doctrine also indicates that the standard of Article 425 CCC is a special regulation in relation to Article 189 of the Code of Civil Procedure. On the side of the thesis about the constitutive ruling, it is indicated that Article 425 CCC is a special regulation in relation to Article 58 CCC, and therefore it is not of absolute nullity nature. Moreover, arguments are also raised about the concurrence with the sanction contained in Article 422 CCC and about the necessity to secure legal turnover thanks to a constitutive ruling. The article also presents the evolution of the jurisprudence line towards the adoption of a constitutive position and its domination in the jurisprudence of the Polish Supreme Court based on the security of legal transactions. The authors of this article, through the analysis of the Polish jurisprudence as well as the views of the doctrine contained in the comments, scientific articles and monographs, have set themselves the goal of collecting, summarizing and organizing the most popular positions and their arguments.</p>

O administracji ogólnej II Rzeczypospolitej uwag kilka w świetle monografii Jarosława Kostrubca „Administracja ogólna w myśli prawniczej Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej”

<p>This review article is devoted to the problems of general administration in interwar Poland, based on Jarosław Kostrubiec’s monograph entitled <em>Administracja ogólna w myśli prawniczej Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej</em>. The Author’s main goal was to determine the political and legal position of general administration in Polish jurisprudence of the discussed period, which found expression not only in the literature of the subject, but first and foremost in the premises and drafts of normative acts, as well as the propositions of then functioning Commissions for the Improvement of Public Administration. This objective has been achieved, and the reader has been presented with a concise monograph, which presents the doctrine’s view of the important concepts of administrative law and the science of administration: general administration, consolidation of administration, and deconcentration of administration. The unquestionable achievement of the Author is his references to the currently binding doctrine of administrative law when analyzing the conceptual nomenclature of the Second Polish Republic. This has allowed to bring the achievements of Polish jurisprudence of the interwar period closer to his contemporaries.</p>

Legal Act as the Subject of Mythologization: Remarks on the Reception of the JUST Act of 2017 in Poland

<p>The article presents a legal act as a potential subject of mythologization. The tools derived from the studies on political myth were used to describe a phenomenon that strictly belongs to the political and legal reality – the American JUST Act of 2017, which in recent years has caused many controversies in Polish public debate. While using the theoretical methods of the most notable researchers of the political myth, such as R. Barthes or E. Cassirer, it has been shown that legal acts, as well as their reception and interpretation, are not always<strong> </strong>based on rational forms of cognition. They can also be affected by a political myth and a mythical form of cognition, which is depicted in this study by means of methodology implemented from the studies on political myth. The article formulates interesting comments that may be useful for a better understanding of the phenomena on the border of Polish jurisprudence, political science and mythology.</p>

Questions without answers, or Тhe Abortion сase

In October 2020, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland delivered a landmark judgment where it held the legislative provision allowing the termination of pregnancy on the grounds of severe and irreversible impairment or incurable life-threatening disease of the fetus unconstitutional. This article presents a study of a fundamental legal conflict that is central to this judgment. It examines the decision of the Tribunal not only in the light of Polish legislation and jurisprudence, but also in a broader context of a biomedical discussion about the beginning of life, a formalistic definition of a legal personality, the idea of equal protection of life regardless of the state health, and the need to protect the rights of a woman that may at times come into conflict with the recognized rights of a fetus. In fact, the arguments that we find in the judgment of the body of constitutional review of a particular state trigger a discussion of the problematic issues relevant for any society. The article also includes an overview of the caselaw of the European Court of Human Rights that, on the one hand, highlights the range of problems that should be addressed by the national regulation of the grounds for abortion, and on the other hand, demonstrates the existing gaps in the fundamental bioethical and legal responses to these dilemmas. The authors suggest a scheme to address these issues that requires a reference to the principle of proportionality and a consideration of positive measures reducing the attractiveness of pregnancy termination that should become an alternative to prohibition of abortions. The study concludes with the finding that the Polish approach towards the absolute constitutional conflict has serious flaws of inconsistency and unwillingness to see the complexity of the problem. Therefore, it is plausible to suggest that the dilemma is far from being resolved. The article employs the objects and methods typical for legal research, but also incorporates the findings of relevant medical, biological and demographic studies that appear to be vital for a full-fledged understanding of this interdisciplinary topic.

Interpreting Law Through International Judicial Dialogue by Polish Courts

International judicial dialogue is a new method of law interpretation that gains popularity in analyses of legal scholars and still raises a lot of doubts both on its existence as well as its definition. This paper will deal with the application of this technique by Polish courts. In the first place, it will be explained what international judicial dialogue actually means. Afterwards, the paper will in detail discuss problems connected to the use of this method on the basis of decisions of Polish courts, first, by presenting examples of a proper, decorative and failed dialogue, and then by emphasizing complications caused by this method in the Polish jurisprudence. It will be also explored whether there exists a real dialogue, meaning that not only Polish courts receptively refer to judgments of international and foreign courts, but there is also some level of reciprocity in those references. At the end of the paper, the advantages and disadvantages of this method will be deliberated. In this part, I will suggest some solutions permitting mitigation of some adverse effects s of this technique.

Minor Victim Representation in Cases of Crimes Committed by Family Members in Polish Law

<p>The study presents the current legal regulations and problems with the implementation of procedural rights of a minor victim in the case of crimes committed by members of his family in the Polish legal system. The presented issue concerns the necessity to apply provisions contained in various acts, both public and private law. The author discusses the most important judgements of Polish jurisprudence in the indicated scope, emphasizing, however, that many aspects of the discussed issues, of a procedural nature, have still not been regulated. The conclusions include <em>de lege ferenda</em> postulates concerning, i.a., the transfer to the criminal court of the competence to appoint a guardian <em>ad litem</em> for disadvantaged minors.</p>

Referring Phrases with Deictic Indication and the Issue of Comprehensibility of Texts of Normative Acts: The Case of Polish Codes

The paper focuses on a specific type of referring legal provisions, in which the referring phrase contains a component that indicates the position of a certain fragment of the same text of a normative act by determining the position of that fragment in relation to the fragment in which the given referring phrase is located. Despite the fact that these referrals, called deictic, may be perceived as uncomplicated in structure and as functioning correctly in legal texts, many theoretical as well as practical problems arise during their drafting and legal interpretation. The article attempts to reveal, organize and name these problems basing on the conceptual grid formulated by Studnicki, Łachwa, Fall and Stabrawa as a universal, although not widely known outside Polish jurisprudence, tool for analysing and solving referring provisions as elements of various legal systems, especially continental ones. Texts of selected Polish Codes have been chosen as an illustrative material of deictic referrals which have been incorrectly formulated as leaving space for interpretative doubts in terms of place of indication (demonstratum) and place of reference (referent), which also causes a potential problem of the deferred ostension phenomenon noticed by Quine. The author argues that proper drafting of referring legal provisions with deictic indication requires that the legislator should have extensive pragmalinguistic knowledge and is an essential part of law-making oriented towards achieving comprehensibility of texts of normative acts, especially as important as Codes.

Polish Jurisprudence in the 20th Century: A General Overview

The present paper provides a general overview of the sources of inspiration and main currents in Polish jurisprudence in the 20th century, especially in the post-War and contemporary period. The paper notes that the main sources of inspiration in the early 20th century included Leon Petrażycki, Bronisław Wróblewski, Czesław Znamie-rowski and Jerzy Lande, who exerted a great influence on the first generation of Polish post-War legal theorists. The Lvov-Warsaw school of analytical philosophy also had a huge impact on Polish jurisprudence, as the school to a large extent determined the research questions posed by Polish legal theorists. Indeed, analytical legal theory can be said to have dominated Polish jurisprudence from the 1950s up to the end of the 1980s. After 1989, a broad current of new philosophical approaches to jurisprudence emerged, including legal hermeneutics and philosophies of interpretation, legal ethics, postmodern and critical legal theory, the phenomenology of law as well as an original Polish achievement – the legal theory of ‘juriscentrism’.

Józef Nowacki as a Theoretician of Normativism in Poland

The present paper aims to present an outline of the views of the Polish legal theorist Józef Nowacki (1923–2005). The claim put forward is that Nowacki was the chief representative of Hans Kelsen’s normativism in Polish legal theory. The paper begins with a short historical sketch presenting the reception of Hans Kelsen’s views in Polish jurisprudence, noting that in the post-war period the communist authorities believed that normativism was at odds with the then prevailing system of actually existing socialism. Drawing inspiration from German-speaking authors, Nowacki rejected the ideology prevailing in Poland at that time and became a staunch advocate of the normativist stance, in particular with regard to the theory of the legal system. The second part of the paper discusses Nowacki’s views regarding the concept of the rule of law, and the third and last part presents Nowacki’s critique of the case-law of the Polish Constitutional Court.

Mit i paradygmat racjonalnego prawodawcy w świetle wybranych przykładów orzecznictwa oraz legislacji sejmu VIII kadencji

Autor podjął próbę refleksji nad występowaniem paradygmatu racjonalnego prawodawcy w teorii i praktyce stosowania prawa we współczesnej Polsce. Wskazując na endemiczny charak-ter problemu badawczego w polskim prawoznawstwie, dążył on do skonfrontowania stanowiska doktryny z orzecznictwem sądowym ostatnich lat oraz praktyką legislacyjną Sejmu VIII kadencji. Wszechstronne ujęcie zagadnienia motywowane było chęcią sformułowania hipotez i wniosków mogących inspirować kolejnych eksploratorów podjętej problematyki. Podsumowując wyniki przeprowadzonych badań, autor przedstawił swoje krytyczne stanowisko, uznając, że koncepcja racjonalnego prawodawcy budzi istotne wątpliwości i uzasadnione zastrzeżenia, co powoduje, że wymaga ona reinterpretacji.

Intricacies of Significant Imbalance as the Cornerstone of Protection against Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts under EU Law

Significant imbalance in the rights and obligations of the parties to a consumer contract term is, together with good faith, a fundamental pillar of substantive protection against unfair terms. It is the primary tool provided by Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts with a view to mitigating differences in bargaining power between professional traders and consumer on the ever-expanding capitalistic market within the EU. The paper comprehensively reviews the meaning of the “significant imbalance” element by reference to a cross-section of judgments handed by the CJEU and Polish courts. Generally, albeit with a few notable exceptions, the former court has engaged in a subjective-objective exercise aimed at discovering what the balance of rights and obligations would have been between the parties in the particular dispute at hand had it not been for the purportedly unfair clause. Besides that, the requirement has been utilized to impose ad bolster a host of information duties levied on traders so that protection is extended to cases where the consumer is unaware of their rights or are deterred from enforcing them due to procedural obstacles or prohibitive costs of judicial or administrative proceedings. The requirement of significant balance, rooted in the idea that the disproportion of market power between the parties to a disputed term necessitates government or judicial intervention to achieve or restore contractual equilibrium, is shown from a plethora of angles: its ideological foundations, practical connotations, its emphasis on consumer vulnerability and approach to economic power. Assistance and inspiration re gleaned from Polish jurisprudence where numerous questions either unanswered by the CJEU or left to the consideration of national courts, particularly the relation between reasonableness, on the one hand, and significant imbalance and good faith on the other, as well as between significant imbalance and good faith, have been tackled.

Jeszcze o związku przeciwobowiązkowości jako kryterium obiektywnego przypisania. Czy należy odrzucić założenia nauki o zwiększeniu ryzyka?

Przedmiot badań: Przedmiotem badań jest jedno z fundamentalnych kryteriów obiektywnego przypisania skutku nazywane w niemieckojęzycznej nauce prawa karnego związkiem przeciw-obowiązkowości (niekiedy: związkiem bezprawności lub związkiem ryzyka). Nauka o obiek­tywnym przypisaniu skutku – pomimo, iż w polskim piśmiennictwie i judykaturze uważana jest wciąż za teorię „nową” – znajduje coraz większe uznanie w orzecznictwie, zwłaszcza Sądu Naj­wyższego. Oznacza to odrzucenie dawnych koncepcji, według których do przypisania skutku przestępnego domniemanemu sprawcy wystarczyło ustalenie związku przyczynowego łączącego zachowanie ze skutkiem. Obecnie przyjmuje się, że dla ustalenia sprawstwa skutku niezbędne jest również (oprócz powiązania ontologicznego) zastosowanie kryteriów normatywnych. Podstawo­wa formuła obiektywnego przypisania skutku odsyła arbitra badającego wypełnienie znamion czynu zabronionego do dwóch grup kryteriów, które dotyczą zarówno oceny wadliwości (przeciw-obowiązkowości) zachowania się, jak i jej związku ze skutkiem. Sposób ustalania tego związku jest w doktrynie sporny. Wymaganiom politycznokryminalnym najlepiej odpowiadają założenia nauki o zwiększeniu ryzyka. Przeciwko tej teorii podnosi się jednak w piśmiennictwie różne, teoretycznoprawne i dogmatycznoprawne zarzuty.
 Cel badań: Przeprowadzona analiza ma na celu zbadanie, czy zarzuty podnoszone wobec nauki o zwiększeniu ryzyka (Risikoerhöhungslehre) są w tym stopniu poważne i uzasadnione, aby nale­żało odrzucić założenia tej teorii. Zwłaszcza, czy w sporze naukowym należy opowiedzieć się za dominującą w piśmiennictwie i orzecznictwie konkurencyjną teorią uniknioności (Vermeidbarke­itstheorie), której konsekwencje z punktu widzenia kryminalnopolitycznego i intuicji społecznej wydają się trudne do zaakceptowania.
 Metoda badawcza: Badania oparte są na analizie piśmiennictwa polskiego i niemieckojęzyczne­go, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem najnowszych podręczników niemieckojęzycznych. Przegląd podręczników niemieckojęzycznych, w których badanym zagadnieniom poświęca się znacznie więcej uwagi niż w opracowaniach polskich o podobnym charakterze, pozwala na przedstawienie zróżnicowanych poglądów dotyczących analizowanej problematyki – wyrażanych tam w sposób esencjonalny i w pełni klarowny.
 Wnioski: Przeprowadzona analiza wskazuje, iż najcięższe zarzuty podnoszone przez przeciwników nauki o zwiększeniu ryzyka nie są przekonująco ani dostatecznie uzasadnione. Dotyczy to zwłasz­cza argumentu o naruszeniu zasady in dubio pro reo oraz zarzutu przekształcania typów przestępstw naruszających dobra (Verletzungsdelikte) w przestępstwa z narażenia (konkrete Gefährdungsdelikte). Nauka o zwiększeniu ryzyka wymaga jednak – co oczywiste – dalszych badań i pełniejszego okre­ślenia (doprecyzowania) kryteriów formułowanych przez jej zwolenników.

Kontrowersje wokół ustalania odpowiedzialności z tytułu naruszenia więzi rodzinnych jako dobra osobistego

The question if family relations can be deemed as a subject of a personal right effective erga omnes has been considered in Polish jurisprudence and judgments of different courts including the Supreme Court since 2010. In 2018 there was a breakthrough in this debate of great theoretical and practical significance. On March 27, 2018, the Supreme Court of Poland passed three resolutions in extended benches (7 judges) in which it was confirmed that family relations are recognized as a subject of a personal right and that their protection is effective erga omnes. The Supreme Court said also that pecuniary compensation for infringement of family relations which are subject to a personal right can be granted not only in case someone caused that a person – party to a family relation – is dead, but also that the person is seriously and permanently injured. The question of recognition family relation as a subject of a personal right and that their protection is effective erga omnes is very controversial in the jurisprudence of civil law. The controversies are discussed in this paper. The author of this paper does not consider the controversies as enough to question the general idea of recognition of family relations as a subject to a personal right (erga omnes). The author of this paper shares the general view of the Supreme Court (Civil Chamber) presented in the resolutions passed on March 27, 2018, provided to some minor critical remarks. However, it should be pointed out that on October 22, 2019, the Supreme Court (Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs Chamber) passed the resolution in an extended bench (7 judges) in which the admissibility of recognizing family relations as a subject to a personal right (erga omnes) has been questioned. It means that this question is to be resolved by the joint chambers of the Supreme Court.