Public Hearing in Poland – a Legitimising Dimension of Citizen Participation in the Legislative Process

The article is devoted to the practice of using participatory tools in the law-making process in Poland. The subject of the study was the public hearing introduced into the Polish legal order in 2005. It mainly used the institutional-legal and comparative methods. Embedded in the framework of the theoretical concepts of participatory, deliberative, and pluralist democracy, the presented analyses focus on the legitimizing dimension of the public hearing procedure. The analysis of the normative construction and practice of using this institution allows for formulating general conclusions that indicate its legitimizing potential, including its potential to influence institutional arrangements. At the same time, however, this practice revealed a specific “sensitivity” of public hearing procedure to the political and social context, carrying the risk of transforming it into a kind of facade institution for the representative rule (with a somewhat illusory participatory character.