Local referendum as a form of consultation on changing the boundaries of municipalities (on the example of Suprasl Municipality)

The article is devoted to the presentation of remarks on the relationship between the obligation of prior consultations with residents of the issue of the act of the Council of Ministers regarding the creation, merger, division and abolition of the municipality and a possible local referendum in the case. The article focuses on selected aspects of this relationship, which will allow answering a few questions and research problems, such as: what conclusions can be drawn from the legislative path of this particular statutory regulation?; what is the difference in the territorial range of consultations with residents and the local referendum, and who actually gives opinion to the Council of Ministers before issuing the regulation?; whether statutory regulations on this subject are possible and whether the municipal council’s resolution has single or multiple applications?; finally, whether the expressed opinion is binding on the Council of Ministers?

About the Referendum in Poland Once Again – Selected Remarks

Referendums arose the permanent interest of both science and political practice. A lively debate is also ongoing in Poland. The article is devoted to the disputes related to the constitutional referendum, especially the concept of its non-binding character and its prior nature in relation to constitutional amendments, as well as changes in the sphere of local referendums. Particular attention has been also paid to issues concerning the freedom of speech during the referendum campaign and the implementation of referendum results.

Local Referendum in Poland in the Light of Current Legal Regulations and Proposed Changes

The local referendum in Poland is the only instrument that allows residents to directly and ultimately decide on matters important for a given local community. On the one hand, this institution is strengthened by the right to referendum initiative of a binding nature that is granted to residents, but on the other, it is weakened by a number of barriers related to, among others, the requirement of high voter turnout determining the binding referendum result. For years changes in this area have been proposed by scientists, social organizations, as well as entities who have the right of legislative initiative. The last legislative proposal in this regard submitted to the Sejm in 2018 proposed, among others, granting the right of referendum initiative to the executive bodies of local government units, restoring the possibility of holding the local referendum on the same day as the nationwide referendum or the election of the President of the Republic, elections to the Sejm, the Senate or the European Parliament. The most important proposal, however, concerned the abolition of the requirement of minimum turnout conditioning the binding nature of the local referendum.

Is a Referendum a Threat to the Democratic Order? Reflections on Polish Legal Regulation and Referendum Practice Against the Background of the Latest Opinions of Foreign Doctrine of Constitutional Law and Political Sciences

In the latest literature on the subject, one can notice an increase in interest in direct democracy on the one hand, and on the other – a clear increase in the skepticism of researchers towards the idea of making binding and important decisions for the state by popular vote. The purpose of this article is to present and analyze the latest views of foreign doctrine of constitutional law (and, in addition: political science) about the institution of the referendum and to compare them with the (general) analysis of the legal regulation of this institution in Poland, as well as to present the real impact of referendums on the decision-making process and public policies in Poland. As a result, an attempt will be made to assess the Polish legal regulation of referendum institutions in terms of their effectiveness on the one hand, and potential threats (or resistance to threats) to the democratic order on the other. Although direct democracy, and especially a referendum, have a wide range of critics in the scientific community accusing it of even being anti-democratic, radical proposals calling for the complete abolition of referendums are rare. The postulates of appropriate changes in the legal regulation concerning the referendum prevail in order to make it resistant to dangerous modern phenomena: populism, political cynicism, manipulation and propaganda. The implementation of all postulates for changes reported by representatives of science will be very difficult. Noticing this fact may cause that the referendum will become a decision-making procedure very rarely launched. This seems to be the intention of researchers who submit their proposals and reservations – that direct democracy should be only an exception to representative democracy and that the former should not be used against the latter.

The subject of the article is the analysis of the provisions of the Art. 35 (2) of the Act on Local Referendum against the background of the Art. 31 (3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, creating the conditions for admissibility of formulating restrictions on the use of constitutionally specified provisions the rights and freedoms of the individual. The aim of the study is to determine whether the statutory regulation under review remains compliant with the constitutional principle of proportionality regarding the citizen’s right to a court. The main thesis is that the disposition of the Art. 35 (2) of the Local Referendum Act does not infringe the individual’s rights related to the pursuit of claims related to unreliable referendum campaigns.

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.

The impact of the proposed changes to the system of local referenda on the position of local government authorities in Poland

The article is an attempt to assess the potential effects of the changes to the Local Referendum Act currently being processed by the Sejm of the 9th term, and proposed by the circles associated with the Kukiz’15 party. The authors focused on the changes concerning referenda on revoking the authority of a local government unit, with regard to: changing the number of signatures required to order a referendum from 10% to 5% (in the case of commune and poviat authorities) and from 5% to 2.5% (in the case of voivodship authorities) and lowering the referendum validity threshold to 15% (in the case of decision-making authorities), and 3/5 of the number of votes cast for the incumbent mayor/president of the city. The hypotheses of a significant facilitation in the organization of referenda and in the dismissal of both the legislative and executive authorities of the local government were verified.