Attorney-at-law – a profession of the future?

Attorney-at-law plays an essential role in legal professions. Who is it and who can become one? These questions must be answered in light of the challenges of today and the shaping of the professions of tomorrow. These professions will define the boundaries between each of the legal services in the 21st century.

Using a real property and liability for interfering with using neighboring, residential real properties

Exercising ownership of a real property, in particular its use, might result in interfering with the use of neighboring, residential real properties. The article concerns the legal means available in the case of the use of a real property is a source of interference in the use of a neighboring, residential real property. The article analyzes not only the range of legal means available in these cases but also the range of entities that can be addressees of the actions undertaken by the owner seeking legal protection.

Questioning the arrangements regarding the amount of compensation for land plots allocated for public roads under Article 98(1) of the Real Property Management Act at the stage of administrative proceedings to determine compensation

The article presents the view in favor of the possibility (obligation) for investigation and questioning by the public authorities in the process of determining the compensation for land plots allocated for public roads, which have become the property of a local government unit or the Treasury on the basis of Article 98(1) of the Real Property Management Act, the results of arrangements regarding the amount of compensation reached through negotiations (civil law action) between the owner of the land plot allocated for a public road and the competent authority. The purpose is to demonstrate the situations in which such an investigation is necessary, and that it falls within the cognition of public authorities and administrative court rulings on compensation.

The issue of taxation of non-building structures. Selected issues

The study concerns the issue of taxation of non-building structures with real property tax. According to Article 2(1)(3) of the Local Taxes, Fees and Charges Act of January 12, 1991, non-building structures or parts thereof related to the conducting of business activities are subject to real property tax. In general, it must be noted that one can find extensive studies of real property tax in the scientific literature, while the issue of real property taxation of non-building structures has been treated rather partially. It should be emphasized that the titular issue has so far been the subject of mutually exclusive views in the doctrine, and has not been uniformly viewed in the judicature. The primary intention of the research is to characterize what impact the current legal regulations have in this regard to determine its extent on the tax law system. It is necessary to consider, in the context of the current legal regulations, what are the directions of changes of the analyzed institution, in particular through the perspective of real property tax dependent on the value of the non-building structure.

Failure of the commune to fulfil its obligations in proper waste collection

In practice, in the implementation of municipal waste collection obligations by a commune, a situation may arise in which waste is collected from property owners under standard regulations functioning in the commune, but the “production” of waste is greater (non-standard), which means that the waste does not fit into a container or trash enclosure. A question then arises as to the manner of handling such waste and the possibility of applying the mechanism provided for in Article 6s of the Maintaining Tidiness and Order in Communes Act, according to which, if the commune does not fulfill the obligation to collect municipal waste from property owners, the property owner is obliged to transfer municipal waste, at the expense of the commune, to an entity collecting municipal waste from property owners, entered in the register of regulated activities. The subject of the article is the analysis of the legal and factual solutions regarding possible ways of proceeding in the aforementioned situation.

Penal law protection of trees

The article presents criminal law provisions that penalize the destruction or damage of trees. Only some of them protect trees as an essential element of nature. Other provisions primarily protect property, which includes trees as part of real estate. The analysis carried out in the study found that the legal protection of trees largely depends on the location where the tree grows. Some regulations apply to trees growing in forests, others to trees located in protected areas such as national parks, and others to trees located, for example, along the roadside.

The study also presents the problem of the classification of a certain factual state and the conjunction of regulations. In many cases, the classification as a crime or a misdemeanor will be determined by whether a specific behavior resulted in substantial damage, which is an evaluative criterion. Also addressed is the problem of wobbler offenses, including the difficulty of determining the value of stolen timber or the amount of damage when a tree is destroyed or damaged.

Gloss to the decision of the Polish Supreme Court of March 16, 2017, case file no. IV KK 57/17 (critical)

The article is a critical analysis of the problem raised by the Polish Supreme Court in the decision of March 16, 2017, case file no. IV KK 57/17, related to the possibility of the influence on criminal liability of the circumstance in the form of the origin of the perpetrator of a criminal activity coming from a different cultural background. The considerations carried out focus on the goal in the form of answering the question of the possibility of accepting the indicated circumstance as a justification for the foreigner’s error as to the unlawfulness of their behavior. Normative support for the considerations carried out is Article 30 of the Polish Penal Code, which regulates the consequences of the occurrence of the so-called error as to the law.

Gloss to the decision of the Polish Supreme Administrative Court of February 23, 2022, case file no. III OSK 820/21 (partially approving)

The gloss concerns the decision of the Polish Supreme Administrative Court of February 23, 2022, which examined a complaint against a decision imposing an obligation to pay a fee for water services under the New Water Law Act of July 20, 2017.

The content of the aforementioned decision raised issues that cause interpretative difficulties, but at the same time, due to the short duration of the regulation being in force, have not yet been the subject of a wider examination by the administrative judiciary.

In the case which is the subject of the decision, the entity charged with the obligation to pay the fee challenged the decision of the commune head determining the amount of the fee, challenging both how the authority determined what specific land should be considered real property within the meaning of the New Water Law Act, and also objected to the authority’s failure to recognize in the decision the individual sewage system located on the complainant’s land and discharging rainwater from the complainant’s land into a ditch as a stormwater drainage system within the meaning of the provisions of the aforementioned Law, accounting for the area where the complainant used construction facilities, the construction of which was associated with a reduction in natural terrain retention.

In assessing the case, the court of the first instance primarily examined the scope of the concept of real property and the area included in open or closed stormwater drainage systems.

Both the Regional Administrative Court, ruling on the complaint in its October 18, 2018 decision, case file no. II SA/Sz 735/18, and the Polish Supreme Administrative Court did not share the applicant’s position, dismissing the complaint.

The decision of the Polish Supreme Administrative Court concerns a problematic issue, raising many doubts even before the legislation introducing it came into force.

In the opinion of the author of the gloss, the court in question, in its decision, failed to address concerns that have arisen around the regulation of fees for the reduction of natural terrain retention.

Report on the scientific conference “Challenges of the self-government of attorneys-at-law in the modern times” (June 23–24, 2022, Toruń)

The scientific conference, “Challenges of the self-government of attorneys-at-law in the modern times” was organized on June 23–24, 2022 in Toruń on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the National Bar of Attorneys-at-Law by the Toruń Bar Association of Attorneys-at-Law. It addressed the tasks of the attorneys’-at-law self-government, both in the context of the community and in the context of the role of professional self-government in a democratic state of law, as well as the role of attorneys-at-law in the system of legal protection bodies and civil society, and their participation in social, economic and technological changes at the local and national levels.

Overview of the decisions of the Polish Supreme Court

The Resolution of the Polish Supreme Court of October 6, 2022 (case file no. III CZP 119/22) is of particular importance for legal practice. The Court indicated that the compensation due from the insurance company under the contract of third party liability insurance of motor vehicle owners for damages arising from the use of these vehicles covers only necessary and economically justified repair costs. In the Resolution of October 6, 2022 (case file no. III CZP 112/22), the Polish Supreme Court stated that the ruling issued in closed session is a ruling that does not exist if the signature has been placed only under the entire document including the operative part and the main reasons for the ruling (Art. 357 § 5 Civil Procedure Code). Moreover, in the Resolution of June 2, 2022 (case file no. I CSK 219/22), the Polish Supreme Court decided that the submission by parents on behalf of a minor child of a declaration of inheritance rejection is an activity that exceeds the scope of the ordinary management of the child’s property, and making it without the prior consent of the guardianship court entails the nullity of this type of declaration. In addition, the Polish Supreme Court, in the Resolution of May 31, 2022 (case file no. II CSKP 34/22), stated that bringing an action by a parent on behalf of a child for the protection of personal rights against the other parent of that child is an act of representation of the child.