In the text, we first recall the historical contexts of changes in public education, by recalling them to shape the distance necessary to reflect on the current solstices and transformations taking place in this area. One of the main tasks of a universal and uniform school in a modernizing Europe was to ensure equal educational start for all children. In neoliberal reality, this task ceased to be obvious, and with the significant participation of parents, the foundations of the school’s public character were undermined. Parents from a politically and economically dominant middle class, seeking to gain an advantage over their children, simply do not want public school. The public school defense is therefore easily marginalized. Using the example of recent reforms (e.g. American), we show how schools are no longer places where people belonging to different layers or social classes can create a common world. From this perspective, we analyze issues arising from the questioning of neoliberal social policy that has taken place in recent years. In Poland, it finds expression in, among others in the electoral victory of the grouping (Law and Justice – PiS), aiming to restore the previously overlooked social groups to their rightful place in public space. One could expect that the style of the previous educational policy will therefore be replaced by a more egalitarian, equality policy, preventing unjustifiable selections limiting the life chances of ‘lessborn’ children. However, PiS education policy goes in the opposite direction and expands the system’s selection strategies (elite high schools, no more “mass” access to schools, etc.). Trying to find out the reasons for this contradiction, we focus our attention on the profits that in public discourse brings – as practiced today – the replacement of society by the nation.

For over a decade, Iceland has been ranked first among countries around the world in the field of equality between women and men, both in the legal and social aspects. But such a spectacular achievement is not the result of legal regulations developed today or even in the last few decades. This is the final achievement of consistent, over a century of work - especially of women - for the proper and equal treatment of people, regardless of gender, and other differentiating factors. And although it is probably not realistic to create an ideal model, the Icelanders managed to work out a very difficult thing. Coexisting at the intersection of great attachment to tradition and the church, they noticed the subjectivity of each individual, as well as the right of this individual to be an equal subject of human rights and liberties. So, what is the concept of equality shaped in contemporary Iceland, and what legal and social processes have Icelanders undergone to achieve such exemplary standards? Pointing it out is the aim of this article.

The Principle of Equality in Elections to Bodies of Self- Governments of Public Trust Professions

The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the constitutional principles relating to elections to public authorities should mutatis mutandis be the benchmark for elections to the bodies of self-government of public trust professions. The principle of equality of the electoral law is of particular importance in this area. The analysis has been carried out on the basis of the Polish Constitution, the case law of the Constitutional Tribunal and the laws and internal acts regarding professional self-governments. It follows that a breach of the principle of equality in the internal acts of a professional self-government may be grounds for declaring them unlawful. Whereas, laws concerning these self-governments should enable the scrutiny of elections. The considerations lead to the conclusion that topics combining the position of professional self-governments and democratic standards of the election law can be a field of interesting research in the domain of constitutional law.

An important argument in favour of recognising the cultural relativism and against universality of dignity and human rights, is the claim that the concept of dignity is a genuinely modern one. An analysis of a passage from the Demiurge’s speech in Timaeus reveals that Plato devoted time to reflecting on the question of what determines the qualitative difference between certain beings (gods and human being) and the world of things, and what forms the basis for the special treatment of these beings – issues that using the language of today can be described reasonably as dignity. The attributes of this form of dignity seem to overlap with the nature of dignity as we know it today. Moreover, Plato proposes a response both to the question of what dignity is like, as well as the question of what dignity is. It is existential perfection, rooted in a perfect manner of existence, based on a specific internal unity of being. Dignity is therefore primordial in regard to particular features and independent of their acquisition or loss. Plato’s approach allows him to postulate that people be treated as ends in themselves; an approach therefore that prohibits the treatment of people as objects. Both the state and law are ultimately subordinated to the good of the individual, rather than the individual to the good of the state.