The Right to Public Information in the Practice of Local Government Administration Units

Despite the passage of several years a er the Act on Access to Public Information came into force, its implementation by the entities obliged to ensureit is in many cases still far from the standards dened by the legislator. Local government administration units are no exception here. There are two main modes of making information public: through the Public Information Bulletin and on request. e former is handled more eciently by the units in question, there being none that do not have the Public Information Bulletin. However, the range of information made available on each page of the Public Information Bulletin varies. In the case of providing public information on request, the situation is much worse and there are still cases when public information is not made available on request despite the explicit statutory duty

The article revolves around the topical issues of Administrative-delict law reform in Ukraine. It outlines wide range of theoretical and practical problems of legislative regulation in the field of administrative responsibility. It also gives the author’s view at the structure and content of the draft of the Administrative-Delict Code of Ukraine.

Efforts to Improve the Performance of the Debtor’s Obligation to Pay Child Maintenance

The article refers to activities designed to improve child support collection in Poland. The main focus is on the solutions in the 2007 Act on support for persons entitled to alimony. The main part of the article presents the problems related to the activities carried out by municipal authorities of municipalities towards child maintenance debtors while trying to assess their impact on the eectiveness in collecting child support. The key issues include: alimony interview, professional activation of the unemployed child support debtor, interception of the debtor’s driving license and entry in debtor registers kept by credit information bureaus. Apart from the doctrine and jurisprudence, the article also features statistical information on the implementation of the 2007 Act.

The Impact of Non-Governmental Organisations on the Performance of Public Tasks: Legal Aspects

The activity of NGOs is an expression of the development of civil society, directed at functioning independently from state institutions. The autonomy of this activity should not be treated as competing with the state, but rather as supporting it and complementing its functions. Civil society strives to satisfy the needs of its members and feels responsible for their fate. In this way the NGOs may work in the so-called external sphere of administration. However, the functioning in the internal sphere is also possible – in this case public administration bodies transfer some of their competences to NGOs which “step into” position of public administration in this domain. is study focuses on the legal aspects of both types of this co-operation

Selected Aspects of the Changes in the Sickness Security of Uniformed Service Officers

In the event of social risks materialising, the ocers of uniformed services ocers benefit from the protection guaranteed by the provisioning system, which diers significantly from the general insurance scheme. The dierences lie mainly in the methods of financing the benefit, but they also applies to the conditioning of social risks, as well as prerequisites and procedures for determining the right to the benet. A common feature of both systems is, in particular, that they are regulated by the provisions of administrative law. The main objective of this contribution entitled Selected aspects of the changes in the sickness security of uniformed service officers, is to attempt to answer the question whether the changes made in recent years in the social security system of uniformed officers in case of sickness can be assessed as a „modernisation of social security law”.

The Limitation of the Right to Public Information in the Rulings of Administrative Courts: Selected Issues

In modern democracies, the right to public information is the basis of functioning of states and international organisations. In Poland, the right to information, as introduced in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and regulated in the Act on Access to Public Information, provides citizens with extensive possibilities of  controlling the state’s transparency. In the Act, access to public information is dened very broadly and covers almost everything that is related to the activity of public authorities. However, this right cannot be of absolute nature. For various reasons, access to public information must be limited. However, such limitations should be  exceptions and cannot violate the essence of the right of access to public information, as referred to in the Constitution and the Act on Access to Public Information.

In recent years, there has been adramatic increase in the number of requests for public information and public institutions issue decisions to refuse to provide such information. These decisions are then examined by administrative courts. In such cases, administrative courts play avery important role as in their rulings they dene the fundamental concepts included in the Act on Access to Public Information and specify the scope of public information subject to disclosure.

The article contains adetailed analysis of abody of rulings of administrative courts concerning the limitation of the right to public information due to personal data protection, business secrets and the value of processed information, which is related to an additional requirement of the applicant acting in public interest. It must be added that rulings on providing access to public information are inconsistent and changeable, which makes it substantially more dicult for public administration authorities to carry out this constitutional right.

The duty to give reasons is generally thought of as an indispensable procedural guarantee that is offered to citizens in all modern European administrative law systems. The comparative analysis carried out in this article, however, reveals that important differences continue to exist between the way in which various legal systems within Europe conceive of that duty. The article furthermore argues that the duty to give reasons has an important role to play in the furtherance of transparency and accountability as principles of good governance. However, it also has its limitations as an instrument for keeping the administration accountable. Up until today, the duty to give reasons primarily has a role to play in the relationship between the administration and those individuals that are subject to its specic (mostly individual) decisions. In that context, the question arises whether the status of the duty to give reasons is evolving towards that of an individual human right

The New Rules of Electronic Communications in Administrative Court Proceedings

The purpose of this review is to analyse the legal regulations introducing new rules for electronic communications in administrative court proceedings as of 11 February 2017 and to demonstrate the benets but also risks resulting from the process of informatisation. One of the signicant changes refers to the admissibility of  submitting electronic-format pleadings at courts.

On the one hand, the broader implementation of information technology in administrative court proceedings may contribute to accelerating such proceedings, but on the other hand. It may involve some risks such as technical issues related to hardware and so ware, problems with interpretation of new IT terms, or problems with impersonation or unauthorised disclosure of personal data.

Electronic Sales and Auctions as Elements of the Modern Public-Procurement System

An electronic sale is conspicuous by a specific schema of acting fixed by the article 74–article 81 of the Public Contracts Law Act of 29th January 2004 (consolidated text: Dz.U. of 2015, item 2164). In the Public Contracts Law Act, the legislator also concretized – especially in article 91a, article 91b and article 91c of this Act – legal shape of an electronic auction. Article 74 item 1 of the above-mentioned Act indicates among other things, that in the electronic sale one ought to employ a form located within an internet page. Analogically, in article 91c item 1 the first sentence of the same Act the legislator requires in particular using – during the electronic auction – a form hooked to an internet page.

Consolidation of Tax Administration in the Light of the Non-Uniform Model of Governmental Administration in Poland

The text concerns the organisation of tax administration consolidated into governmental administration in Poland. The analysis presented in the contribution leads to the conclusion that the head of the fiscal chamber has become a“superbody” in the field of taxation with extensive prerogatives and the employer of the head of the tax office, at the cost of the latter who merely resolves tax issues in the rst instance being, as if, abody within abody, i.e. the scal chamber. Such asituation is undesirable from the perspective of the principle of two-instance tax proceedings and the settled public administration model with the independence of public bodies its integral part.

Modernisation Challenges of the Polish Civil Service

The main objective of this article is to identify and characterise the main – according to the author – modernisation challenges that the civil service in Poland is facing. Considerations and proposals arise from the analysis of the existing legal standards and operational practices of the Polish civil service, including as well conclusions derived from personal experience of the author who has held managerial positions in governmental administration units. For that reason, the proposed solutions, based on the systemic and legal analysis but also the practice of one of the key internal stakeholders of the civil service system. Certainly, the highlighted challenges do not exhaust the entire catalogue of possible modernisation solutions, yet the author’s main goal was to present abroad view of the subject matter in order to discuss the key challenges for the civil service in Poland.

Public servants are at times portrayed as appeasing political masters while aiming for illegitimate political and personal interests (an example that was featured in the British comedy “Yes, Minister”). This misperception demonstrates the balancing act required by public administrations, especially if they truly seek to serve the public. Adding inter- national law, global governance and modernization to the melting pot of EU members renders matters particularly challenging. The paper explores the issues’ theoretical and practical perspectives.

Debate begins by examining international law and globalization components of global governance relevant to domestic public administration, including global administra- tive law. This definitional stage is followed by theorizing on how developments affect EU members’ public administration. Moving from theory to practice, the paper next discusses influences of the new global governance, non-state actors on public adminis- tration structures, legal environments and interrelationships. We end the discussion by offering policy proposals, food for thought and proposals for future research directions. In the past, European public servants were subject only to local laws serving local con- stituencies. Today, the same public servants are an integral part of an EU-Global mod- ern public administration serving the globe. This development creates great uncertain- ties, but with proper policies it can be a true blessing for both public administration and the EU-Global public.
 

The Integrated Permit as an Example of Europeanised Regulated Use of the Environment (General Considerations)

This paper offers an analysis of the material-legal impact of EU law on the legal forms of control of the use of the environment. As first, some basic notions are presented related to the provision of a permit for operations likely to have negative environmental effects, then the analysis focuses on the notion of integrated environmental protection discussed from the perspective of the provision of integrated permit. Further, the analysis focuses on the provision of integrated permit indicating its importance seen comprehensively for protection against pollution. The author’s considerations end with some closing remarks from the point of view from the title problem of the Europeisation of controlled use of the environment. The procedural impact on EU law on the nature of the provision of integrated permit remain out of the scope of this contribution.

The Europeanisation of National Public Administrations as Exemplified by the Polish European Affairs Coordination Model

The aim of this article is to analyse the Europeanisation of Polish administration and law, politics, economy, culture and society. The process of Europeanisation has been in progress since the 1990s. Poland’s EU membership affects the structure of administrative bodies as well as the scope of their powers and the ways in which these powers are exercised with regard to foreigners and foreign entities. The EU has influenced Polish administration in many ways. One can differentiate between two stages of European- isation: before and after Poland’s EU accession, each characterised by different condi- tions. In the course of time, this process, on the whole, has been undergoing numerous changes but its importance has never decreased. The spectacular transformation of the political system prior to EU accession was followed by further changes, less visible but equally profound and remarkable, after EU accession. Obviously, most modifications related to the Europeanisation of administration and the system of governance are similar, if not the same, in all EU member states as well as the states associated with the EU. This is so because one of the fundamental principles of the EU is uniformity in the application of its law. However, this uniformity can be ensured in various ways. This is expressed and guaranteed by the principle of procedural autonomy of the Member States. Under this principle, they may adopt different legal procedures and systems, inter alia with regard to their public administration and territorial structure, as long as they ensure that EU law is applied effectively.
 

Customs Administration as Part of the Structure of Public Administration after Poland’s Accession to the European Union

Poland’s accession to the European Union has generated a number of challenges related to the adjustment of the state customs administration to EU standards. Poland faced the task of improving the functioning of its Customs Administration, which was particularly important due to the fact that the Polish eastern border is automatically the external border of the European Union. The aim of this article is to present the reform of the customs administration, its basic functions and tasks as well as to highlight the role of the Polish customs administration for the economic development of the state and the single customs area of the European Union. It should be emphasised that the importance of the customs administration has significantly increased since EU acces- sion as the Polish State undertook to protect the public, the environment and cultural heritage. Since the very first day of its EU membership, Poland has been bound by the provisions of the original Treaties and acts adopted by the institutions. In the light of the commitments, the Polish customs administration supports conducting legitimate business (gambling market surveillance, protection of intellectual property rights) and protects society and the environment against risks (prevention of imports of dangerous goods, protection against illegal export of endangered species of plants and animals, and export control). In order to make a comprehensive analysis of the changes it is necessary to pay attention to the sources of the customs law in the Polish legal system. Since the date of Poland’s EU accession, the key role has been played by the Community Customs Code and the Common Customs Tarif. Poland places much emphasis on the modernisation and improvement of the functioning of the border with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The modernisation of border crossings will contribute to an improved safety of travellers and officers as well as to a reduced risk of smuggling of hazardous materials into the single area of the customs union.

The Implementation of the EU Legislative Package Concerning ADR and ODR in Consumer Disputes into the Polish Legal Order

The present article aims to discuss the objectives of Directive 2013/11/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on alternative dispute resolution for consumer disputes and amending Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 and Directive 2009/22/EC (Directive on consumer ADR) and Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on online dispute resolution for consumer disputes and amending Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 and Directive 2009/22/EC (Regulation on consumer ODR), with a particular focus on their impact on Polish legal system.

The contribution is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the basic principles of the Directive on consumer ADR and the Regulation on consumer ODR while the second part oers an analysis of the legal consequences of the implementation of the Directive on consumer ADR in the Polish legal system, in particular its impact on public authorities. Strengths and weaknesses of the system are identied and based on their impact it is possible to formulate some de lege ferenda propositions.

Local Government in Poland Before and After its Accession to the European Union. The Use of EU Funds by Local Government Units as Exemplified by Podkarpackie Voivodeship

The local government has been part of the Polish political system since 1990. The key moments in the transformation of the organisation in the country were the adoption in 1999 of a three-tier territorial division in 1999 and the entrance into force of the 2002 Act on the direct election of mayors and governors. The local government is a form of participation of citizens in shaping – public collective life at local and regional levels.

The purpose of this article is to present a the changes in the functioning of the local government after Poland’s accession to the European Union and to present the impact of EU funds on development of local government units. Thanks to EU funds a num- ber of projects have been implemented aimed at improving skills, social integration and employment as well as improving the competitiveness and innovation of Polish enterprises. Particular attention should be paid to the impact of EU funds on regional development and the construction of modern infrastructure in local government units. Development of individual local government units translates directly into improved living standards and the development of the Polish state.
 

Poland in Focus. The Evolution and Modernisation of the Social Welfare System in the Institutional Perspective

In this article, I discuss the evolution of social welfare in Poland. I focus on the institutional perspective, which shows changes in the institutions in this area. In the first part, I present the development of social welfare in the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939) and then describe changes in the communist period and the Thrid Republic after 1989. At the end of my contribution, I discuss the plans for the modernisation of the Polish social welfare system.

One of the elementary conditions of democratic society includes, among others, an active and powerful civil society which acts as an intermediary between the state and citizens. Moreover, the functioning and effective civil society represents the way to influence the public governance. The aim of the article is to research the scope of the relationship between civil society and public governance in the particular post-communist country – the Slovak Republic, where preconditions for establishing a civil society were completely different than in Western democracies. Moreover, the article examines, with the help of analysis and synthesis methods, the contribution that an efficient civil society can make to the democratization process and good governance.

The paper offers a case study of the Marianske Lazne administration as an example of the New Public Governance (NPG) approach ed in the Czech Republic. The focus is on the particular pillars representing the features of NPG. Until now, five months after the general election, the particular attention of the Pirate Party on the determinants of NPG objectives could be observed through: making all meetings of the board's expert commissions accessible for the general public; publishing all documents discussed by the town's council on the internet; making all the town's banking accounts transparent; creating a department of internal audit separated from the rest of the administration; granting the status of a permanent guest at the board's meetings to a representative of the opposition; doubling the frequency of the council's meetings; preparing new rules of procedure facilitating the participation of citizens in the council's meetings; strengthening the communication channels between the council on the one hand and the chairpersons of expert commissions and directors of municipal organisations on the other; cancelling the positions with unclear benefits for the town; and making the rules of using municipal funds more transparent. There are still mo re evident measures expected in the areas of the second and third pillars of the Pirates' program, that is the provision of quality services for citizens and vicular and the positive development of tfie town's spa industry.

The contribution is focused on one of the most fundamental ethical values and principles applied in public administration environment – responsibility and personal accountability of public officials and administrators, who have to be liable and answerable for their deeds and actions towards certain community, regional or local, and towards general public as well. The introductory part deals with the explanation of two concepts in question, responsibility and accountability regarding the processes of making, guarding and managing agreements, decisions and expectations in any relations, covering the area of public administration from the ethical point of view. The theoretical contemplation takes into consideration teleological and deontological conceptions, followed by practical summary of the public administration accountability mechanism. Finally, the basic ethical aspects and accountability levels are dealt with, keeping in mind that inner and outer influences on administrators’ and public officials’ accountability are connected with their behavior and decision-making.

Administration of Polish Communes and the Current Challenges of Europeanisation and Modernisation

In Polish local government units the process of Europeisation has entailed the modernisation of local communities. In local Poland, Europeisation includes such areas of cooperation with the EU as: partner towns, trans-borderrelations (Euroregions), use of EU funds, and the activation o communities at the time of the EU accession referendum campaign (2003). Most of those processes have also entailed modernisation efforts. This is true not just for economic but also social and political issues. The mod- ern face of the Polish local administration in recent years also means new and young corps of local-government staff who are highly qualified and have a vision of their own professional development. The focal point of the Europeaisation and modernisation processes is Uniejów, which over the last few years has become the best developing Polish commune. The article attempts at showing to what an extent major phenomena in economics and regional policy may change the way small communities function as well as how much depends on efficient public governance

Public Administration in the Third Greek Republic in the Context of the Economic Inefficiency of the State

In his article, the author raises a variety of issues related to the Greek public adminis- tration. The characteristics of the Greek administrative model are presented taking into account the distribution of the national and local government.
Later in the article, the author points to the relationship between the poorly construct- ed (and dysfunctional) Greek model of public administration and the economic prob- lems of the state. On the basis of empirical research in the form of in-depth interviews and analysis of existing data, the author offers some conclusions concerning the Greek government, dealing with a major disability in its functioning. It also identifies various pathological phenomena that have occurred, or are taking place in the Greek govern- ment, for example: overstaffing in the public sector, excessive bureaucracy, corruption, or irresponsible financial policy. In the final part of the article, the author raised the issue of the challenges for the Greek model of public administration, from the point of view of the organisation and man- agement of this administration. In addition, the author points to the indispensability of these challenges, taking into account the efficient functioning of public administration in the future.
 

Administrative Reforms in France: the Methods and Challenges

In France, the notion of an administrative reform has kept returning since the Enlightenment. The French administration assumed its modern guise after the 1789 in response to the more or less excessive criticism of the shortcomings of the Ancien Régime. Following the Napoleonian maxim, those ”granite boulders” were thrown onto French soil of institutions that would weather the storms of history and be an example to follow. Their creators were inspired by both tradition and the need of innovation, or bureaucratic excess to be exact, which, however, entailed the risk of diluting the obligations and responsibilities. Still, the 20th century saw a reform-minded movement yet again, motivated by the same criticism, the same plan which regardless of the passage of time was guided by the desire to make sure that the solutions were reasonable, efficient and cost-effective. It should be noted here that such attempts were particularly urgently made in the times of financial crises, and each time somewhere at the back was a spectre of the state transformed in a way that made it serve private interests. With so many reformist attempts well deserving exploration, questions arise concerning the methods and the price: how and why should administration be reformed?
 

The Impact of Great Powers on the Structure and Competences of the International Humanitarian Organisation the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)

UNRRA – United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, whose achievements are not sufficiently reflected in the historiography of the post-war period, is an interesting object of research for many reasons. In this article, we have attempted to show the mechanisms which great powers resorted to in order to secure a dominant position not just in terms of prerogatives but also administrative structure. The main task of the UNRRA was to offer aid needed for the economic and moral reconstruction of the countries occupied by the Axis. This was a massive challenge in logistical and theoretical terms. An efficiently functioning aid organisation could serve not just peace building on humanitarian foundations but also be a test for the paradigm of the United Nations the founding of which it preceded. And it was for just those reasons that many countries expressed apprehension as to the US dominance visible in the negotiations while realising that humanitarian assistance without taking account of the economic potential of that power would have been doomed to fail.

Concepts for the Education and Training of Public Administration Personnel as an Aspect of State Policies

The premise of this study is that it is in the state’s interest to create acorps of officials that will be able to effectively serve the authorities by accomplishing the political, economic or social ideas conceived of by the state.
It has been shown that regardless of the historical period, political-economic system or development status, a democratic state pursues aconscious policy on training and other requirements for public officials, thus affecting the level of human resources, their qualications and rules for their selection.

The Cost-Eectiveness of Local Government in Poland’s Health Policy Against the Background of the Current Health Situation in the EU

At the beginning of this article the genesis of public health is presented, both in the Polish and European context. Then the current health situation of Polish society is assessed in comparison with other European Union citizens, on the basis of one subjective indicator (opinion concerning one’s health) and two objective ones (life expectancy and mortality rate). Further, the tasks of local government in Poland are presented in the public health area and the definition of effectiveness is given, in the context of which the ways of funding public health measures by the local government are described and the structure of expenditures of the local government in the public health area are compared with other expenditures from the local government’s budget. In the conclusion of the article, the results are described of the 1999 reform in the area of cost-effective funding of tasks in the area of public health at local level.

One of the side eects of the American 1979 recession-triggered replacement of Keynesian Economics by Monetarism of the Milton Friedman Chicago School of Economics was the replacement of managing engineers by administrators in technology organizations, construction and projects.

In that role reversal, costs invariably started to go up with growing administration preoccupied with numbers and dates, and with form often prevailing over content that seemed to be sometimes “lost in translation”. The era sometimes called “Economics of Excess” had begun.

Organizations faced with escalating costs have kept searching for improvement solutions making use of elaborate analytical top-down methods, with very mixed results. A simple bottom up approach and methods developed and applied by the author on industrial and educational projects are summarized. Tey have been very successful on their own as well as in supporting organizational improvement eorts. They are directly applicable to the concept of Economics of Moderation.

Public Administration in an Open Innovation Model as Exemplied by the “Social Innovation” Programme

In this article, I present the process of defining, creating and implementing innovation by the public administration sector, its crucial element being opportunities for involving public administration in social change of scale. Open innovation could be one of the tools in this kind of approach. Open innovation introduced by public administration and inducing social change should involve five basic principles: cooperation, knowledge sharing, coherence, interdependence, and openness.
In the article, I deal with foreign experiences with the implementation of the open innovation approach by public administration. It should be mentioned that in other countries and institutions there already exist public programmes such as NESTA and the Red Tape Challenge (United Kingdom), MEPIN (Scandinavian countries), Simplex (Portugal), E-Procurement (Lithuania), INNOBAROMETR (European Commission) and European Public Sector Innovation Scoreboard (implemented since 2011). In Poland, the “Social innovation” programme has been implemented since 2012. The National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR), which is responsible for this initiative, has implemented two editions of the scheme so far. On the basis of the above facts, I discuss the exante evaluation and the effects of the two competition editions. In conclusion, I analyse the effects of these actions in the context of initiating innovative social changes.

Recent years have been marked with variations in the hierarchy and acceptance of post-materialist values in the regional environment of the Czech Republic. In particular, difficult areas in the Moravian-Silesian region still exist. The loss of primary public pressure on environmental protection or companies’ compliance with the requirements of corporate social responsibility was demonstrated somehow. However, philanthropy and an interest in possible tax allowances for donations to charities suggest an increasing trend.

It is argued that the maximization logic, on which classic economic analysis is based disregards the multidimensionality of human desires. Therefore, the arguments for superiority of inverstor ownership, which are based on the maximization logic, are misplaced. Indeed, promising features can be observed among the existing non-investor owned organizations.

The Legal, Economic and Social Dimensions of the Eectiveness of Public Procurement

Modern economies of European countries are characterised by a considerable share of public expenditure in their gross domestic product. A large portion of such expenses is effected through a system of public procurement. The current value of that market in Poland is estimated at around PLN 150 billion.
What much matters for the correct functioning of that market in Poland and the EU is an effective policy of public procurement, a vital tool of economic and social intervention. With time, such a policy should contribute to the effective allocation of resources, economic development of the Member States and job creation. An important instrument which may help deliver this vision is the new approach to public procurement, a notion that includes activities aiming at creating legal and institutional conditions that would ensure as effective use of public funds as possible and contribute to elimi- nating the barriers in access to the procurement market experienced by SMEs.
The effectiveness of public procurement and instruments to deliver it should be considered in the legal, economic and social context. It is a complex and multidimensional issue. Discussion of all those aspects together paints a picture of the public sector as an intelligent client of the public procurement system, aware of its legal opportunities and limitations, using a cost and benefit analysis as well as the rule of best value for money, and having a good market sense. The intelligent contracting authority is also aware of the social effects of the performance of public contracts, e.g. as regards better quality of life or furthering trust in the financial operations by public bodies.
 

Recenzja ksiazki Łukasza Kozery, Zabezpieczenia wierzytelnosci bankowych,
Kraków 2015, ss. 261, ISBN 978-83-63991-95-1

Recenzja ksiazki Grzegorza Krawca, Koncepcje płci człowieka aprawo administracyjne,
Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich, Warszawa 2015, ss. 269

Miedzynarodowa konferencja naukowa „Procesy decyzyjne w administracji publicznej w Polsce i innych panstwach członkowskich Unii Europejskiej”, Kraków, 5–6 pazdziernika 2016