Selected issues on the process of the implementation of the  European Union directives into the national law of the Republic of Poland

The aim of this paper is to presents selected issues on the process of the implementation of the EU directives into the national law of the Republic of Poland. This issue is very important as the most of the legislative process, especially connected with economic issues, is currently held at the level of the European Union. Legal acts, which are adopted in Poland, aim to implement the EU law into the national law. Therefore, there is a need to analyse the implementation process and its character more deeply. This applies to a particular directive, which is seen as a source of secondary legislation of the European Union being subject to this process. No less important is to define the process more precisely, with particular emphasis on the doctrine of discrepancies occurring in the background of the distinction between the implementation and transposition of the EU law into the national law. This raises, in turn, the need to examine the implementation of the law-making process as a two-step operation. This feature is characteristic to the process of the implementation of the EU law into the Polish legal system and has no equivalent in the Polish constitutional order. The basis of the implementation process, which result from the primary law of the European Union, will also be characterized. They provide the foundation for the application of the EU law in Poland. They also show the obligation to ensure the effectiveness of the EU law in the national legal order, which simultaneously requires the imple mentation of the rights contained in the European Union directives. Another element of the study is to present the implementation of the legal basis contained in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The analysis of those basis leads to the conclusion that the Constitution of Poland contains provisions to the validity of both primary and secondary law of the European Union in Polish legal system. Therefore, they constitute the basis for the implementation of the EU directives into the national law. Issues emphasised in the work and connected with the process of the implementation of the EU law into the national law, are the foundation for the analysis of this process, as well as a starting point for further discussion on the mechanism of the implementation of the European Union law into the national law of the Republic of Poland.

The principle of the rule of law in the European Union’s external policy

Rule of law, whose core is „the access to an independent judiciary and judicial review”, fulfills in EU external policy two functions. Firstly, according to the art. 21 of TEU, all EU external actions have to be subdued to the rule of law. Secondly, promoting and consolidating the rule of law is one the objectives of EU external action. In most constitutional systems, a wide margin of appreciation is left as regards to foreign policy and judicial review is considerably limited. In case of EU, the Court’s jurisdiction over EU external policy is differentiated and reflects the old pillar structure. The question which arises here is whether it can be accommodated with the disposition of the art. 2 of TEU, which states that the European Union which is a single legal entity „is founded on the value of rule of law”, and with the principle of EU external policy coherence.

The European Union’s policy in the field of environmental protection aims to achieve a high level of protection of natural enivironment. This text concerns the problems of the European Union’s environmental policy. The author analyzes the tasks of the European Union in the field of environmental protection such as promotion methods that reduce the burden on the global base of natural resources, promotion sustainable resource management at international level and to implementation the program on sustainable consumption and production. Particular attention was given to priority objectives with precise presentation of means and methods to achieve these goals, indicated in the Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on the 7th EU Environment Action Program.

Problem of the Limits of the Constituional Tribunal Jurisdiction over EU Treaties. Debate Regarding Case file ref. no. K 3/21

The article begins with an examination of the doctrinal debate surrounding the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal, which declared certain provisions of the Treaty on European Union to be unconstitutional. The Tribunal took over a year to provide written justification, covering crucial topics in constituional law and the EU law such as primacy, subsidiarity, and constitutional identity. One of the notable changes was the Tribunal’s new approach to jurisdiction over the Treaties. The article, which has a doctrinal and interpretive nature, discusses and critiques the Tribunal’s arguments. The author believes that the question is not whether the Tribunal has the power to review the treaties, but what the constitutional limits of this power are. The article offers suggestions on how to limit the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.