After the period of transformation in Poland, it was obvious that there is a huge need to secure freedom of assembly to polish nation. The Assembly Act of 1990 was established in result of efforts to reestablish the freedom of assembly, completely lost by Poles after Second World War. This act was constituted an important symbol of regained freedom, and was sufficient to exercise the freedom of assembly in the initial period of rebuilding democracy in our country. After some time, it began to require more and more changes. It ceased to comply with the growing demands of a developing social society. The amendments of Assembly Act was among others the consequence of the sentence of European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg and Polish Constitutional Tribunal. On 14 th of October 2015 the new Assemblies Act was set into force. In this article the Author analyses several significant changes in respect to the rules of organization and course of the assembly introduced in new law and tries to answer the question if that changes should be evaluated positively. The paper contains also an analyze of the newest amendments of law on public assembly, which has been adopted on 13 th December 2016 by Polish Sejm. MP’s have proposed among other to implement new kind of assembly called “cyclical”. Polish President Andrzej Duda filled the motion to Constitutional Tribunal in order to examine its compliance with Constitution.

The right to assembly is recognized as one of the key human rights. It is essential for the functioning of the community, it is also the foundation of the democratic state. The legal regulations of the law of assembly in Poland have a tradition dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, but this right was regulated by 1990. The authentic freedom in this respect can be discussed only in the period of the Third Polish Republic, although this freedom has never meant freedom and has always been subject to limitation. The standards, which have been improved for decades, have been broken by the 2015 act, while in 2017 the Polish legislator introduced a number of solutions that made the law inconsistent and problematic in application. This article is aimed at tracing the evolution of statutory regulations from 1918–2015 and evaluating new solutions, especially those introduced in 2017, against it.

Freedom of assembly in times of a pandemic. Israeli experiences

Freedom of assembly is an essential element in modern democracies, also during emergency situations. The time of the pandemic is an example of the use of various restriction mechanisms of human rights. The Israeli case is worth discussing because as in other democratic states the political internal crises overlap with the pandemic emergency regulations and tensions between parliament and executive branch in law-making.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Citizens’ Rights and Freedoms to Organize Assemblies

The article focuses on the freedom of citizens to organize assemblies during the COVID- 19 pandemic in Poland. The provisions of the Acts and the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of March 19, 2021 on the establishment of certain restrictions, orders and bans in connection with the occurrence of the epidemic, prohibiting or limiting the organization of assemblies during a pandemic in terms of the existence of pro-liberation or anti-freedom tendencies, were analyzed. The presented article is an attempt to consider the constitutionality of the provisions in force in this area. The law may become a tool of lawlessness, and it should be noted that the participation of citizens in assemblies is sometimes the only opportunity to express their views and one of the basic standards characterizing a democratic state ruled by law.

The purpose of the article is to present the amendments introduced to the Act - the Law on Assemblies by the Act adopted on December 13, 2016 and to define a new type of assemblies, i.e. public assemblies. Already the draftamending law has met with unfavorable opinions of the Supreme Court and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, which, of course, have not been taken into account. The Act adopted at a very fast pace was also challenged by the President of the Republic of Poland, who appealed to the Constitutional Tribunal to adjudicate on the compliance of its provisions with the Constitution. However, the Tribunal recognised the constitutionality of the new provisions. Briefly presenting the differences between the so-called ordinary assemblies and cyclical assemblies and the procedure related to their organization will allow to put forward the thesis about the introduction of solutions increasing legal uncertainty, violation of the principle of equality and granting the voivode broad discretion when issuing decisions allowing the organization of cyclical assemblies. This will also be confirmed by the indication of the first decisions of the voivode allowing the organization of cyclical assemblies.

Gloss on the Judgment of the Supreme Court of August 24, 2023, file ref. no. IV KK 37/22

The purpose of the gloss is to present the correct line of reasoning that the Supreme Court should have adopted to reach the conclusion approved by the glossator. Relevant jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights allows for the acceptance of the absence of a violation of the norm sanctioned as a result of the application of constitutional and convention interpretation, rather than just the lack of social harmfulness of the act, as basis for the denial of the element of criminality. Any legal restrictions on freedom of speech must arise from serious reasons and an urgent societal need.