On the 25th of September, 2015 the Polish Parliament adopted the act amending the 1989 Act on Associations. Though there had been eight subsequent amendments, the 2015 act was the first aiming to substantially adapt the Act on Associations – the first legal effect of the political consensus achieved within the Round Table negotiations of the then Communist government and the “democratic opposition” – to new social and economic conditions of Poland. 26 years of functioning of the Act have been the time of passage from “real socialism” to “democratic state of law” having to base, according to the 1997 Constitution, on “social market economy”, and from a practical isolation of Poland within its borders to its opening to the world, in particular within the framework of European institutions. The article sketches, also on the basis of the author’s personal experience due to his participation in drafting and legislative works, the course of the revision works initiated in 2009, in particular of parliamentary works on the 2014 President’s draft law, as well as their limited results achieved in the 2015 act. Analyses of causes of such limitation are presented on the plane of the most important items of the pre- -parliamentary and parliamentary debates, i.e. right of legal persons to associate on equal terms with physical persons (not included in the President’s proposal), right of foreigners to associate on equal terms with citizens (and inhabitants) of Poland (its application had been proposed by the President, but not included in the act), and legal effect of the, generally agreed, elevation of the status of “ordinary association” on functioning of the present ordinary associations that would not wish to become new ordinary associations; the latter question relates to the fundamental issue of the sense of the freedom of association.

Gloss on the Decision of the Constitutional Tribunal of July 4, 2023, file ref. no. SK 78/19

The gloss concerns the decision of the Constitutional Tribunal in case file ref. no. SK 78/19, in which the Tribunal discontinued the proceedings based on a constitutional complaint filed by a limited liability company. The Tribunal found that a constitutional complaint cannot be lodged by a legal person due to the location of Art. 79 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland in Chapter II of the Constitution entitled “Freedoms, rights and obligations of man and citizen”. This view is obviously wrong, and the argumentation presented in the justification for this decision is selective. In the case law of the Tribunal, the ability of legal persons to lodge a constitutional complaint is well established, which also raises no doubts in the doctrine. The position expressed by the Tribunal in this decision exposes the rights of collective entities to a limitation.