Przedmiotowy zakres referendum lokalnego w Polsce
THE SUBJECT OF THE LOCAL REFERENDUM IN POLAND

Summary/Abstract: Article 170 of the Polish Constitution provides local communities with the right to decide matters concerning their community through a referendum. In practice, this particular form of direct democracy is most frequently used by people in Poland. However, the laconic constitutional provisions as well as vague statutory regulations result in differences both in thedoctrine and the jurisprudence of administrative courts. The most questionable aspect of the local referendum in Poland concerns issues that may be subject to referendum. Particularly problematic in this regard is an indication of whether people can decide in the referendum about issues that do not fall within the responsibility of self-governmental authorities, matters submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of those bodies, or executed by them as the so called “assigned tasks”. Problems also arise on the background of the interpretation of the legislation on mandatory referendums, although the admissibility to vote on these issues is obvious. The article seeks to address all these issues by discussing different types of local referendum distinguished on the basis of its subject – referendum on the issues important for the community, on recalling the local authorities, on the self-taxation for public purposes, on the transformation of territorial units and legislation. The author relied primarily on the legal regulations, including the recent amendments of 2011, as well as the jurisprudence of administrative courts, the doctrine and the decision of the Constitutional Tribunal from 2003 that has been extremely important in this regard.

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