The paper presents a healthcare centre manager's duties, rights and responsibilities for all the activities related to generation and dissemination of financial and accounting business information by the amended Act on Accounting.
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Keywords: Poland; Smolensk catastrophe; investigative committee; legislative issues;
The opinion relates to the draft resolutions establishing an investigative committee to examine the causes of Smolensk catastrophe. The author claims that, generally, it may be concluded that the idea of establishing a special committee on the Smolensk Tragedy does not raise constitutional difficulties. However the draft resolution, which was submitted by a group of deputies, would require a significant refinement of specific legislative issues.
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Keywords: Poland; Personal Income Tax Act; principle of equality; marriage and family protection;
The opinion attempts to answer the question of whether or not a preferential tax regime available for single parents (A person who brings up children alone can be assessed in double amount of tax assessed on half of the incomes of that person) infringes Articles 18 and 32 of Constitution of the Republic of Poland and leads to discrimination against couple families. The author presents the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Tribunal and the most important arguments of the scientific community. He concludes that the said provisions are consistent with Article 32, but raises certain objections concerning their consistency with Articles 18 and 71 of the Constitution.
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Keywords: Poland; Special Services Committee; secret information; orders;
The opinion attempts to answer the question of whether orders issued by chiefs of special services are subject to preventive control of the Sejm, exercised by the Special Services Committee of the Sejm by way of their scrutiny. The opinion examines the requirement to submit to the Committee, by chiefs of special services, drafts of normative acts related to forms and methods of accomplishing tasks. It also addresses the relation between this requirement and the prohibition of providing secret information to third parties and institutions, about the forms and principles of special services operational activities.
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Keywords: Poland; Code of Civil Procedure; law clerk; electronic writ of payment;
The subject matter of questions of law submitted to the Constitutional Tribunal under a common reference number (P 39/10) is Article 50530 para. 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure Act of 17 November 1964 (Dziennik Ustaw No. 43, item 296 with amendments). The objections raised by the referring court relate to the law clerk’s authority in relation to electronic writ of payment proceedings. The main concern raised by the Author is whether the prerequisite determining the admissibility of referring a question of law to the Tribunal is met. Considering the circumstances, it seems that even without Tribunal’s adjudication, the court may still decide on a case. Thus, it is essential to consider the admissibility of the substantive decision on the issue. The referring court questions the provision authorizing the law clerk to function in electronic writ of payment proceedings including issuing a decision to hand over the case to a court based on its general competence, saying it infringes Article 175 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland according to which the administration of justice is implemented by courts only. In the author’s opinion, the referring court has mistakenly identified the legal protection carried out by the law clerk with administering justice as such. Therefore, Sejm has rejected the complainant’s claims of the questioned Act being unconstitutional.
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Keywords: Poland; investigative committee; the Sejm; state secret
The opinion attempts to answer, among others, the question of an appropriate procedure for consideration by the Sejm of a report on the activities of its investigative committee, if those documents contain information classified as State secret or information about preparatory proceedings, referred to in Article 241 § 1 of the Penal Code.
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Keywords: Poland; Smolensk catastrophe; investigative committee; the Constitution;
The subject of the opinion is the Deputies’ draft resolution on the establishing of an investigative committee to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the catastrophe of the special plane TU 154M of 10th of April 2010, at the Smolensk Severny airport. The author claims that the draft resolution does not infringe the provisions of the Constitution of 1997, the Act of 21 January 1999 on Sejm Investigative Committees and the Standing Orders of the Sejm of Republic of Poland. Therefore, there are no legal obstacles to establishing such a committee.
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Keywords: Poland; Special Services Committee; information; control;
The Sejm exercises control over the activities of the five special services (the Central Anticorruption Bureau, the Foreign Intelligence Agency, the Military Intelligence Service, the Military Counterintelligence Service and the Internal Security Agency). This control is performed by the Special Services Committee of the Sejm. It is impossible to create a universal model for the scope and character of parliamentary oversight function, it has to be considered in the specific context. According to the author, chiefs of special services have to present drafts of their orders to the Sejm, with the exception of information comprised of statutorily protected secrets.
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Keywords: Poland; Value Added Tax Act; European Union law; unlawful practices;
The opinion concerns the Bill amending the Value Added Tax Act in relation to the rules of determining taxable amount (VAT) in case a customer returns goods or a discount or rebate is granted to a customer, and issuing of a corrective invoice is required. The current regulations are inconsistent with the European Union law. According to the author, the proposed provisions are consistent with the fundamental principles of the common system of VAT and with EU legislation, but may cause growth of unlawful practices due to ineffectiveness of Polish tax administration.
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Keywords: Poland; perpetual usufruct; legislative proposals; ownership;
The opinion deals with the assessment of the need to maintain the right of perpetual usufruct in the Polish legal system. The right of perpetual usufruct is one of the most common right in property, there were more than 1 300 000 perpetual usufructuaries in 2006. The purpose of the new legislative proposals is to remove this right from the legal system. From the perspective of perpetual usufructuary, converting into ownership is favourable, provided that it is not connected with additional expenses. On the other side, from the perspective of the owner of property, converting has negative financial effects. According to the author, the right of perpetual usufruct should be modified as regards its content and purpose. It is a better solution than elimination in order to create a new right with similar content.
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Keywords: Poland; organisation of Common Courts; lateral move; judges and prosecutors;
The subject matter of the case heard by the Constitutional Tribunal upon Polish President’s proposal refers to lifting the institution of so the called ‘lateral move for judges and prosecutors’. Lateral move was introduced by the Act of 29 June 2007 Amending the Law on the Organisation of Common Courts Act, enabling additional positions for judges and prosecutors. The Act of 19 December 2008 Amending the Law on the Organisation of Common Courts Act and certain other Acts has lifted lateral move for judges and prosecutors, resulting in their return to previous positions while retaining the current remuneration. The complainant raised the objections that provisions lifting the lateral move infringe Article 2 (principle of protection of acquired rights), Article 178(2) (principle of adequate remuneration), Article 179 (principle of appointing judges by the President) and Article 180(2) (principle of determining the admissibility prerequisites for judge transfer) of the Constitution. The Sejm disagrees with complainant’s objections deeming the questioned Articles constitutional.
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Keywords: Poland; Act on Countering Drug Addiction; nullum crimen sine lege principle;
The opinion concerns the Bill amending the Act on Counteracting Drug Addiction. The bill was connected with the increasing problems of using the legal, but very dangerous, substitutes of drugs. It prohibits marketing and use for non-medical purposes of natural or synthetic substances that act on central nervous system in the same way as narcotic and psychotropic substances. In the author’s opinion, the bill is unconstitutional and, particularly, is inconsistent with the nullum crimen sine lege principle (Article 42 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland) and with the principle of equality (Article 32).
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Keywords: Poland; crash in Smolensk; special committee; constitutionality;
The opinion deal with the constitutionality of establishing of a special committee for consideration of information, requests and comments of State authorities, including the Council of Ministers and the relevant Ministers, and the activities of these authorities, taken in connection with the government’s plane crash in Smolensk on 10th of April 2010, in exercising constitutional control by the Sejm. The author claims that there are no legal obstacles to establishing such a committee.
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Keywords: Poland; Constitutional Tribunal; jurisdiction; European Union secondary law
The subject of opinion is a bill amending the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, introduced by a group of Deputies of the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), which provides for the extension of the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Tribunal to include declaring the compliance of institutional acts of international organizations with Polish Constitution. In the author’s opinion, the bill is, at least potentially, incompatible with European Union law. However, the possibility of control of EU secondary legislation by the Constitutional Tribunal should not be ignored.
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Keywords: Poland; perpetual usufruct; the Constitution; principles of good legislation;
The legal opinion concerns the Act to amend the Act of 29 July 2005 on converting the right of perpetual usufruct into ownership and to amend other acts. The purpose of the Act is to eliminate the right of perpetual usufruct by virtue of law. The author examines the conformity of the Act to the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the principles of good legislation.
More...Abstract. In June 2012 the European Commission received the backing of the member states to launch a visa liberalisation process with Turkey in exchange for a readmission agreement that obliges Ankara to take back illegal immigrants who passed through Turkey as a transit country . This is remarkable in view of the rejection by several member states of the perspective of a visa free travel for Turks . My process tracing analysis suggests that the key to explain- ing this development is the argumentative strength of the European Commission, stemming from the necessity to cooperate with Turkey on migration and the norms of procedures, set in previous readmission negotiations, as well as the coalition between the Commission and the Danish Council Presidency . The article further explores which conditions Turkey now needs to fulfil for the visa waiver of its citizens .
More...Abstract . This paper examines the role of the judiciary in the interaction between the European Commission and the branches of Bulgarian government . The analysis attempts to establish that a transparent, accountable and independent judiciary, an indispensable institution for upholding the rule of law in any democratic society, is crucial for addressing and eliminat- ing corruption at official levels . It is my intention to carry out an analysis as to whether the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) is an effective and balanced legal arrange- ment, ensuring that appropriate, efficient and fair reforms are undertaken in Bulgaria that aspire to engender a permanent political and legal will to fight corruption and organized crime . The CVM serves as a correcting and guiding mechanism, a means for exerting profes- sional pressure in certain situations which directly threaten the rule of law and the separation of powers, and an assurance that the correct and necessary reforms are applied in order to create a permanent, self-sustaining, independent judiciary, essential for the functioning of a democracy based on the rule of law .
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review of: ----------------------- ALEXANDER ETKIND. Eros des Unmöglichen. Die Geschichte der Psychoanalyse in Rußland. Aus dem Russischen von Andreas Tretner. Leipzig (Kiepenheuer Verlag) 1996. 496 S.
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