The electoral rights to the European Parliament of the citizens of the European Union in the Republic of Poland
The electoral rights to the European Parliament of the citizens of the European Union in the Republic of Poland

Summary/Abstract: The Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC), in Article 19 paragraph 2 introduced both a right to vote and a right to stand for election to the European Parliament. The objective of this paper is to present the solutions adopted in the Polish electoral laws to the European Parliament in the context of the Community regulations and to conduct a brief comparative analysis on legal requirements imposed by the Union legislator. The amendment of electoral laws always poses some questions. What is the aim of the amendment? Is this the issue of some shortcomings of the law (like in the case of the Polish reform) or perhaps the reason was not on the merits? Another question is whether the Polish legislator made most of the electoral reform in Poland to introduce amendments into the electoral law to the European Parliament even if the initial legislation might have complied with the EU guidelines. The act which originally regulated these issues is the Act of 23 January 2004 the Electoral Law to the European Parliament as well as the currently binding Election Code of 5 January 2011, which superseded the aforementioned Act. The change of the electoral law is also a good moment to verify the efficiency of the previous legislation.

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