In December 2017 and January 2018, the Sejm and Senate, thanks to the votes of the deputies of ruling party Law and Justice, passed hugely controversial law amending inter alia Polish Electoral Code. Its adoption was opposed by the parliamentary opposition, by the electoral administration bodies and by many experts, however unsuccessfully. The enactment of this law destabilises the electoral system without a clear or evident need and treats the electoral code as a political instrument. Secondly, it does not provide the sufficient time for adaptation (vacatio legis), which may jeopardise free and fair local elections and the stability of the political system. Thirdly, the bill contains numerous unclear provisions and is in many parts written in a careless and contradictory way. Such amendments do not correspond with the European standards, described in the Venice Commission’s Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters.

The aim of the presented paper is to depict the approach of the European Union and its member states towards security in the countries belonging to the Visegrad Group. For V4 countries it is vital to implement such a policy that would make Western Europe aware of the threat and exert political pressure on the countries of the so-called old Union (in particular on France and Germany) to assume a greater responsibility for security and peace in the world as an international organisation and support all actions designed to establish real and effective common defence policy of the EU. Indeed, state security is presently ensured not only by the armed forces of a given country but also through the assurance of obtaining effective assistance (of different kind) from other states and international organisations guaranteed by international agreements.

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.

The article deals with the problem of national security in the contemporary world which is greatly influenced by the process of globalization and digitalization. The paper highlights the role of national security in modern state building. The following issue has been of great interest to many outstanding scientists worldwide especially since the beginning of the XXI century. However, the subject matter of national security in the system of public administration has not been clearly defined yet. Therefore, the paper analyzes the approaches to define national security and points out its distinctive features. Moreover, it emphasizes the fact that at the level of national, regional and global relations the concept of national security is often associated with security strategies. Thus, the article puts emphasis on the predominant characteristics that help to distinguish between these two concepts. In addition, the research clarifies the characteristic features of national security as well as state security. Security, like many other categories of social sciences, does not have a conclusive definition. What is more, the category of security has an interdisciplinary significance. Therefore, scientists define it in accordance with the subject matter and the specifics of cognition and research. Nevertheless, many outstanding scholars view security as an anthropocentric category related to man’s socialessence and value. Accordingly, security presupposes having freedom from the risk, danger and the threat of change to the worse. Most scientists agree that security is a constituent of every aspect of human life. Consequently, security issues consideration is of great significance. All in all, nowadays it is greatly important to achieve a state of security as our globalized society frequently leads to different challenges and dangers. The results of the research contribute to better understanding of the issue and make it possible to introduce effective mechanisms of public administration in the field of national security.

The implementation of the constitutional right of citizens to obtain information about the activities of state authorities, in particular, in the sphere of state security, causes many problems resulting from the application of the Act on the Protection of Classified Information. The measures adopted in the Act, promoting the rights of the community at the expense of the rights of individuals, pose a risk of its instrumental use for political purposes. The reduction of the above-mentioned risk may be supported by a minor correction of the regulations in force, as postulated by the author of the article, which includes an increase in external supervision over the marking of materials containing information intended for protection, which does not undermine the grounds for restricting the transparency of public activities, permitted by the international law and by the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, and required from the perspective of public safety. The conclusion is that it is difficult to be optimistic about this area due to the observed reluctance of the ruling elites to voluntarily abandon the tools that give them an advantage in public communication.

Uprawnienia Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w zakresie zapewnienia bezpieczeństwa państwa

W świetle Konstytucji Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z 2 kwietnia 1997 r. Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej jest najwyższym przedstawicielem państwa oraz gwarantem ciągłości władzy państwowej. Jednym z należących do niego obowiązków jest obowiązek stania na straży suwerenności i bezpieczeństwa państwa, jak również nienaruszalności i niepodzielności jego terytorium. Prawodawca w ustawie zasadniczej, jak też w innych aktach rangi ustawowej przyznał głowie państwa uprawnienia, których wykonywanie ma służyć właściwej ochronie bezpieczeństwa państwa i jego obywateli. Artykuł w ogólnym zarysie ukazuje zakres uprawnień Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, które w sytuacjach wystąpienia różnych zagrożeń są wykorzystywane przez głowę państwa w celu ich zapobiegnięcia lub zminimalizowania ich skutków.

The material scope of the research problem presented in the text encompasses the issues concerned with the possibilities for and limitations of recruiting secret collaborators by the Polish civilian intelligence service. The analysis of the problematics of secret collaboration focuses mainly on institutional and legal aspects, which can be seen in its inclusion in the systemic legal perspective, encompassing such dimensions as administrative and legal, criminal and legal, civil and legal, and ethical one. Next to the normative aspects, the text addresses sociological and psychological aspects of recruiting secret collaborators by special services, thereby depicting the main recruitment methods. The methodology adopted is chiefly based on the institutional and legal approach, in which use is made of, inter alia, textual, functional and systemic interpretations. The problem of possible abuse concerned with the recruitment of secret collaborators by special services is illustrated with an abstract case study and a relevant legal interpretation. Besides, to extend the analysis of psychological and sociological aspects of recruiting secret collaborators, the study uses limited open interviews with former officers of the civilian special services operating in Poland before 1990.

The Media in the Service of the Regime. The Example of Russia and Challenges to Democracy

The subject of the article are the media. The activity of the media was analyzed in the context of their use to achieve the goals of the undemocratic regime. Considerations were also made on the admissibility of limiting the freedom of the media in democratic regimes. The relationship between the activities of the media and state security was adopted as the leading context. Answers were sought to the following questions: is freedom of the media the main value in the state?; can the freedom of the media be limited in a democratic regime?; if we consider that the freedom of the media may be limited, what conditions must be met for this? As a hypothesis, it was assumed that: freedom of the media is an undeniable value of democracy, but it cannot be a superior value over securing the survival of the state. The following methods were mainly used: institutional and legal, comparative and systemic. One of the main conclusions is that: freedom of action of the media can be their privilege only during the normal, i.e. safe functioning of the state, and the actions of the media cannot be contrary to the supreme values of the Nation and threaten the survival of the state.

The objective of this article is to point to legal foundations of the crisis management system and to specify principles it is built on, its actors, their competences, mechanisms of cooperation and coordination and principles for financing crisis management tasks. The author places special emphasis on the need to observe human rights and freedoms in the context of actions taken by the state that aim to ensure security and to create an effective crisis management system. The starting point for this discussion is an assumption that security-related problems affect the entire society whereby this society has the right and obligation to participate in efforts to ensure security. At the same time, institutional mechanisms of ensuring security only use participation of institutions by various kinds of interrelations and support. This article shows certain mechanisms of building national security by state bodies and institutions that are responsible for it and competent to respond in crisis situations. How-ever, the exegesis covers participation of the armed forces and legal aspects of employing the Polish Armed Forces in the event of non-military threats.

The Syntactic-Chronological Structure of Article 5 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the Independence of the State in Relation to other Values of This Provision

The subject of consideration is the logical analysis of Art. 5 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, which, with its scope of norms, covers the fundamental obligations of the State. The political-legal approach to this issue includes a reflection on whether the syntactic-chronological structure of Art. 5 states that the independence of the state is more important than the security of individuals/citizens, because by maintaining independence the state can ensure the security of the individual. The article uses the sentence analysis methods of formal logic, formal-dogmatic, systemic and institutional-legal analysis. The analysis shows that, from a logical point of view, the overriding values are independence and the associated inviolability of territory, from which the possibility of the state’s existence is derived. All other values are subordinate to the independence of the state, because without it they do not exist.

The legal platform for combating terrorism in Poland

This article addresses the issue of terrorism and its counteraction in Polish legislation. Its aim is to demonstrate how Polish law is prepared to prevent terrorist incidents and which agencies and authorities are responsible for these actions. The article applies the method of institutional-legal analysis. Based on it, conclusions can be drawn that Polish legislation is relatively well-prepared to combat terrorism.