Konstytucyjne podstawy funkcjonowania spółdzielni mieszkaniowych
Constitutional bases for functioning of housing associations

Summary/Abstract: The theme of the article is the a search for all constitutional full powers that make it possible to consider housing associations as the value protected by the constitution. It is because associations do not have a direct, explicitly expressed anchoring in the constitution. In such a situation the problem of associations and, broadly speaking, co-operative movement may be considered in the light of the general constitutional regulation related to the freedom of association first pre- sented in art. 12 and, secondly, in art. 58 of the Constitution. The first article assumes the freedom of establishment and operation of “voluntary associations”, which are - for obvious reasons - all the associations, including housing associations. The second article (art. 58 passage 1) guarantees the freedom of association to everybody. Beside art. 12 and art. 58 of the principal act, the constitutional basis for estab- lishment, operation and protection of associations as a special form of “voluntary association” is the standard in art. 75 passage 1 of the Constitution. According to it, public authorities have the obligation to run the politics favouring the fulfilment of housing needs of citizens and to support the activities of citizens aiming at obtaining their own apartment. There is no doubt that one of the main activities meeting halfway the duty specified in the provision of art. 75 passage 1 is the establishment of housing associations, whose principal aim - specified in art. 1 of the act on housing associations - is “the fulfilment of housing needs” of their members. And it is obvious that the task specified in art. 75 passage 1 of the Constitution should also be executed, probably most of all, by means of the statu¬tory establishment of legal institutions, making it possible for physical entities to undertake collective (and individual) activities aiming at building for oneself and one’s family a house or apartment in a multi-family building in order to fulfil housing needs by means of using a given house or apartment. It means that associations, whose aim is the fulfilment of housing needs of members and their families have their own, special legal status, resulting from the Constitution related to their role in the execution of the state’s duties specified ex¬plicite in art. 75 passage 1 of the principal act. As a result, the housing association as one form of voluntary association has not only the general constitutional legiti¬macy to act, set forth in art. 12 of the Constitution, being additionally a guarantee of the constitutional right to associate provided for in art. 58, but, most of all, has the constitutionally specified aim, which is the execution of tasks in the area of fulfilment of housing needs of citizens. Moreover, this task is explicitly imposed on public authorities, which means that they have to (including especially the ordinary legislator) enable the functioning of housing associations, by means of, among others, specifying their legal status. This status (specified by the law) has to take into account the binary character of the housing association, which on the one hand is the form of substantiation of the constitutional right to associate, and on the other hand a form of activity of citizens aiming to obtain their own apart¬ment. An expression of this approach is the regulation of the problem of function¬ing of associations in a separate act, which is not only the act specifying in detail the mode of operation of the housing association, but especially the act specifying and developing the provisions of the Constitution, being in its own way the act organically associated with constitutionally-protected values explicite presented in art. 12, 58 and 75.

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