Problems of the Legal Structure of the Participatory Budgeting

The article subjected the regulation of the participatory budget to a critical analysis as internally contradictory and controversial (including constitutional doubts). It pointed out some resulting paradoxes and discrepancies between practice and jurisprudence in fundamental issues: the eligible participants and the permissibility of using specific personal data. Because such a state of affairs is unacceptable in a democratic legal state and attempts to resolve it through interpretative means have not yielded satisfactory results, selected arguments for providing participatory budgeting with new legal framework are presented. It also highlighted some benefits that could arise from regulating the participatory budget within electoral law (as a distinct type of local referendum) and proposed in an outline some specific solutions.

Constitutional Basis for Conducting Business by Local Government Units

The subject of the study concerns the constitutional and statutory basis for the economic activity of local government units. According to the Constitution, they are not entitled to the attribute of economic freedom, and therefore they should focus their economic activity on satisfying, in accordance with the laws, the needs of a given community of residents, avoiding economic risk and going beyond their own tasks. The insufficient level of local government’s own revenues was criticized, especially after 2015, which is inconsistent with the constitutional assumptions and causes financial crises, drastically limits expenses in many local governments, making it difficult to adequately meet the needs of residents.

From decentralization to (re)centralization. Policies of those in power towards local governments in Poland after 2015

For Poland, the turn of the 1980s and 1990s for Poland was the beginning of a profound systemic change dubbed transformation. As the result of multifaceted alterations, a new political system was shaped based on the patterns, standards and principles on which democratic states and societies base their organization and functioning. The principle of decentralization determined the direction and nature of changes in the construction of the administrative apparatus of the state, so that its bodies and institutions could perform the assigned tasks and functions in a practical manner. Local governments became a significant component of the new structure of public authorities, and they were entrusted with the implementation of the part of public tasks which directly concerned local and regional communities. And although Polish local governments were not free from defects, and the implementation of tasks caused tensions between the state and local governments, until 2015 the principle of decentralization was respected by those in power. However, the elections in 2015 brought a change, and the new ruling party revealed its actual attitude to state governance, including all forms of local government.

The article examines the specificities of local self-government in Spain. The Constitution of Spain established a system of division of powers between the state and autonomous communities and specifies the content of two types of autonomy: territorial and local, each of which has a different legal nature. In Spain, an optimal balance between centralization and decentralization has been achieved, which depends on the order in which competences are distributed between the central government, the regions and the local government bodies, the scope of its competences and the principles of cooperation with the state and regional authorities.