The paper investigates legal funding of the right to petition in Poland. It starts from a comparative background and it introduces the institution in a wider context, as a transparent and accessible for citizens legal solution, that has become an essential instrument of contemporary direct democracy and civic society. The author discusses regulations of the 2014 Acts on Petitions with reference to the Constitution of Poland and organisation of the Sejm and the Senate proceedings. Moreover, the study has placed the right to petition in a fieldwork of Polish system of human rights protection and Polish legal system in general. Finally, the paper presents results of opinion polls on direct democracy and civic engagement in Poland to discuss them with reference to previously presented construction of the right to petition as a legal institution. The author concludes with a relevant question on its further development in times of deep polarisation of Polish politics and during the Constitutional Crisis in the county. 

One of the most crucial principles of democratic regime is the concept of civil society. The implications of such concept are also visible within the area of labour law as the right to strike has been perceived as its core element. The primary purpose of the presented article is to consider whether the application of the doctrine of civil society automatically disables for a recognition of lockout for the employers’ organizations within the Polish legal system as well as international standards. The presented paper will mainly rely upon the legal dogmatic analysis of the provisions of Polish Constitution from 1997 and international regulations. The author will also use the elements of the comparative analysis between Polish standards amd norms enacted by the Council of Europe and the European Union. The innovative approach of the paper is the complex analysis of the Polish solutions from the intenational perspective in terms of equality between labour and the capital.

The subject of the article is an analysis of the concept of security functioning in the Polish constitution of 1997. The author presents the views of the doctrine and constitutional regulations in this respect. It also divides the concept of security according to several criteria: subjective, objective and sources of threats.

Experiences related to the global financial crisis of 2008 and to subsequent turbulence in the financial market, and also to threats connected with the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrate the evolution of the aims of the functioning of central banks. The goal of monetary stability, which means attempting to ensure low inflation, has proved insufficient. As a part of building a new architecture of financial regulation and supervision (at international, European, and national level), the mandate of central banks has been strengthened and supplemented with activities aimed at ensuring the stability of the financial system, understood as a state of affairs in which systemic risk does not accumulate. The aim of this article is to analyze the systemic role of the NBP (Polish Central Bank) from the point of view of the contemporary evolution of the role of central banks within the financial safety net.

Human dignity as a constitutionally protected value

The Article discusses the issue of granting human dignity the status of the highest value in the Polish Constitution. What is more, it explains the grounds of the regulation of art. 30 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. Additionally, it presents dignity as a foundation of the legal order. Therefore, de facto, every legal norm that functions in our legal system should comply with this regulation. The article calls attention to a danger of potential abuses pointing out some of the practices that can violate the human dignity in the future.

The paper is an attempt to diagnose the visible phenomenon, though still informal, of forced privatization of tasks assigned to law enforcement authorities within the current Polish legal system of counteracting money laundering and financing terrorism. It is also an attempt to assess the situation when law enforcement and supervisory institutions as well as cooperating bodies marginalize their duties connected to preventive and investigative activities. The author advances the thesis that shifting the point of gravity of the indicated actions to the obligated entities (mainly of a non-public character) leads to an unacceptable, from the point of view of constitutional principles, threat to freedoms and rights and constitutes an obligation that does not fit into the conditions specified in art. 31 of the Constitution. The article is a picture of reality.

Legal Protection of Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion is one of the fundamental freedoms of individual, which has to be and is protected by international and national law, as shown on the example of the Polish Constitution. Freedom of conscience includes both the right of individual to choose the worldview and the right to change it. Freedom of religion ensures the right to express and manifest the views and convictions on religion individually and collectively, privately or publicly. Considering derogation of freedom of thought, conscience and religion, international law states that it may be restricted, but only in specific circumstances and under the legal act. The Polish Constitution is in line with international law in terms of restricting the above freedom.