ANONYMITY AND OPENNESS IN GAMETE DONATION: THE RUSSIAN POLICY ON THE THIRD-PARTY REPRODUCTION

Author(s): Rafał Łukasiewicz,Angelo Viglianisi Ferraro / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

The Russian Federation is one of the few jurisdictions where recipients and gamete donors have a wide scope of choice between anonymous, identifiable, and known donations. This paper examines how the Russian law regulates this sphere and how it is applied in practice basing on data collected in the largest reproductive cells bank in Russia. It demonstrates that the Russian Federation should be regarded as a country in which there is no single dominant approach to the matter of donor anonymity. The assessment of this ‘freedom of choice’ is not unambiguous. It gives recipients and donors the right to decide which option is the most suitable for their needs and motivations, simultaneously not resolving which values take precedence over others. The donor-conceived persons’ right to disclose donor’s identifying data sometimes may conflict with the donor’s right to protect their privacy and usually, jurisdictions decide which one has the priority.

Administrator danych w polskich parkach narodowych (wybrane aspekty prawno-administracyjne)

Author(s): Jarosław Dobkowski,Jakub Goerick / Language(s): Polish Issue: 45/2019

The article presents an outline of the problem of determining personal data administrator in the public sphere on the example of one of the forms of nature protection in Poland – national parks. The research focused on the differences between legal definitions of a data controller that has an essential impact on the process of separating a data controller in a national park. The whole is finished with de lege ferenda postulates, which would solve this problem.

Glosa krytyczna do uchwały Naczelnego Sądu Administracyjnego z dnia 1 lipca 2019 r. (I OPS 3/18)

Author(s): Tomasz Hankus / Language(s): Polish Issue: 46/2019

The author critically refers to the resolution of the Supreme Administrative Court, in which it was considered that the only and excluded condition for stopping the driving license for exceeding the speed limit by more than 50 km/h in built-up areas is information obtained from an authorized entity. He does not accept the literal interpretation of the provision of art. 7 item 1 point 2 of the Act on the amendment to the Penal Code. without the party’s right to a fair trial, which also arises from international law. According to the author, the Supreme Administrative Court should make a pro-constitutional and pro-convention interpretation, and if necessary refuse to use it as a provision contrary to EU law.

Pytanie prejudycjalne w sprawie sądowoadministracyjnej

Author(s): Bernard Łukańko / Language(s): Polish Issue: 50/2020

The study presents an analysis of the practice of filing requests for preliminary rulings by Polish administrative courts to the Court of Justice of the European Union. In addition to an analysis of statistical data covering the years 2004–2019, the paper discusses the course of the proceedings before the national court requesting a preliminary ruling and the resulting proceedings before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Based on the research conducted, the author concludes that the administrative courts are the ones from all Polish courts which most often make requests for preliminary rulings to the Court of Justice. It is the Supreme Administrative Court in particular which uses this opportunity, with most requests being concerned with tax law. It should be emphasised that requests for preliminary rulings made by Polish administrative courts have been drafted in a very diligent manner which led the Court of Justice to render rulings on the merits in nearly all cases.

Public Documents Act and Its Role in Preventing Document Forgery

Author(s): Mieczysław Goc,Dorota Semków / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

Forgeries of documents concern almost all types – from ID cards, passports, to money marks and securities. This procedure is a serious threat to proper legal transactions. Security of legal transactions means the need to ensure the credibility of documents by caring for trust in the document as a formal way of ascertaining the law, legal relationship or circumstances that may have legal significance. For this reason, the document benefits from protection in many areas. There are nearly 400 legal acts in the legal system in force in Poland, the subject of which are documents. Representatives of the scientific community, lawyers and experts in the field of document research, however, have for years emphasized the need for a legal act to legally organize the issues of documents. The Act of 22 November 2018 on Public Documents, therefore, constitutes a long-awaited legal regulation and thus is an important element in the process of preventing crimes against the credibility of documents, filling the organizational and legal gap in the broadly understood issue of public documents. The Act had to be a form of coherent, comprehensive legal regulation that would be used in both administrative, civil and criminal law. Its solutions should be considered as correct and necessary in creating a system of public document security. The implementation of the provisions of the Act on Public Documents gives hope for comprehensive regulation of the indicated issues. Both from the perspective of securing the interests of the state and its citizens, the Act deserves a positive assessment of its provisions.

POLICE COOPERATION DETERMINANTS WITH THE NATIONAL LABOUR INSPECTORATE

Author(s): Marian Andrzej Liwo / Language(s): English Issue: 31/2020

Cooperation is one of the forms of impact having a significant impact on increasing the efficiency of the implementation of tasks by cooperating entities. It can result either from legal regulations as specific initiatives of specific entities, also taking the form of an agreement. The Police cooperation with the National Labour Inspectorate is the result of specific normative regulations and the concluded Agreement, which includes a wide range of topics. An analysis of the parties’ activities against the background of the concluded Agreement indicates appreciation of its provisions by the Police and the National Labour Inspectorate to ensure the rule of law in employment and in other matters to which it relates.

Proper, transparent and just prioritization policy as a challenge for national competition authorities and prioritization of the Slovak NCA

Author(s): Ondrej Blažo / Language(s): English Issue: 22/2020

The paper tries to establish some limits of the framework for prioritization policy in order to show that the NCAs are still bound by certain principles for setting their prioritization policies and are not completely independent or autonomous. In this context, priority setting by the Slovak NCA, surveillance of this process and evaluation of its credibility is analysed. The power to prioritize cases became a part of the ‘independence toolkit’ of the ECN+ Directive and is linked to effective use of limited resources. Despite including prioritization into the elements of independence of NCAs, the ECN+ Directive gives no further requirements for the prioritisation of the performance of enforcement powers of NCAs. Decisions regarding prioritization of enforcement can allow a NCA to focus on the most serious infringements of competition law. On the other hand, they can be challenged due to lack of transparency, arbitrariness, disproportionality and because of unequal treatment. Hence the prioritization policy, as well as individual decisions, shall be embedded into the framework safeguarding proper enforcement and due process of law. The legal framework of the European Commission for the system of rejection of cases as well as limited judicial review can serve as an inspiration for NCAs. Although NCAs are not restricted in the selection of their priorities, some competition infringements shall be inevitably included in their priorities, such as cartels and bid rigging. The case of Slovakia and its NCA shows a relatively low level of accountability of the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic (AMO) to the parliament, and judicial as well as parliamentary control of the prioritization and case selection of the AMO is limited.The paper concludes that within the reform of the Slovak NCA, it will be insufficient to only grant the AMO guarantees of independence, including independence of priority setting, and that mechanisms of accountability and review shall be evolved.

Putting Dawn Raids under Control

Author(s): Jorge G. Contreras Condezo,Annabel Kingma,Miroslava Scholten / Language(s): English Issue: 22/2020

Dawn raids have become an effective tool to enforce EU and national competition laws. Judicial review is an essential mechanism of control over the executive branch against possible misuse of this power. However, this judicial review has shown to have limits; it cannot always guarantee an adequate redress for the affected parties. How to address the limited judicial review to ensure control over dawn raids? This article argues that the limits of judicial review could be addressed by extending the types of controls over this action, i.e. ex ante legislative guidance and internal managerial accountability. The more conceptual argument that this paper puts forward is thus that it is essential to seek connections between different concepts and types of controls to ensure a comprehensive/water-tight system of controls over the actions of the executive branch.

Glosa do wyroku Wojewódzkiego Sądu Administracyjnego w Gorzowie Wielkopolskim z 22 grudnia 2020 r., II SA/Go 337/20, dotycząca opłaty za usunięcie drzew i krzewów

Author(s): Dominika Trzeszczoń,Mateusz Dżugaj / Language(s): Polish Issue: 13/2021

The aim of this study is to assess the levy for felling trees and shrubs in connection with the execution of the city authority’s decision. The glossed judgment relates to a situation in which failure to plant certain plantings resulted in the imposition of a penalty. The basic research method used in the article is based on a comprehensive analysis of the normative material. Through an approving gloss, the financial legal nature of the fees related to the felling of trees was examined. The views of the science of law were also assessed, in particular, the achievements of the Polish doctrine of environmental protection law and financial law were taken into account.

Recenzja monografii Anny Barczak, Kontrola podmiotów korzystających ze środowiska, Wolters Kluwer, Warszawa 2020

Author(s): Aneta Kaźmierska-Patrzyczna / Language(s): Polish Issue: 13/2021

Postępowanie regulacyjne jako sposób uregulowania stanu prawnego nieruchomości Kościoła Ewangelicko-Augsburskiego w RP

Author(s): Dawid Binemann-Zdanowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 14/2020

The unlawful removal by the communist authorities of real estate owned by the Evangelical churches operating in the Republic of Poland before the Second World War, which took place after the end of War in Mai 1945, was finally legalized by the Act of July 4, 1947 on amending the President's decree of November 25, 1936 on the relationship between the State and Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Poland. The political transformation in Poland, which took place in 1989, initially did not change the ownership of the Lutheran Church but also did not lead to the enactment of any legal acts that would allow for the recovery of unlawfully seized real estate. The property of the Church’s matters were regulated by the Act of May 13, 1994 on the State’s Relationship to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of Poland. This act provides for two separate procedures for evangelical real estate, namely: the administrative procedure with regard to real estate owned by the Church legal entities on the date of its entry into force and the regulatory procedure with respect to real estate located in the former 2nd Republic of Poland, which is not owned by church legal entities. The analytical part of the articles presents regulatory proceedings introduced by the Act of 1994.

Current Problems of Financial Law in Poland and in the Czech Republic Including Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author(s): Marcin Tyniewicki,Michal Kozieł / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

It should be clearly stated that current pandemic of the COVID-19 virus has significantly impacted the public finances of many countries and considerably influenced the functioning of world’s economy. Allocation of public resources to prevent, or counteract, negative effects of the pandemic has taken various forms. Regardless of the extraordinariness of this situation, the possibility to use aid instruments depends on legislative changes and, thus, on the prior passing of appropriate legal provisions, since they determine the rules based on which these instruments are implemented. Poland, and the Czech Republic, have taken proper actions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Referring to the experience of both of these countries, it should be noted that legal and financial solutions used to counteract the pandemic have not always been conducted in accordance with constitutional norms, established financial law rules, or principles of conducting financial economy in the public finance sector. The Authors of this article, while evaluating these solutions, have decided to indicate certain general trends happening in the current financial law, which, unfortunately, are not always positive.

Rethinking the Indirect Taxation of Trust in the Reform of the Italian Tax System

Author(s): Salvatore Antonello Parente / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

In Italy, among the priorities of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), a strategic position is taken by the tax reform, which is part of the actions to remedy the structural weaknesses of the country’s system and to stimulate economic recovery after the Covid-19 crisis. In this context, in order to design a new tax structure, in terms of economic growth and competitiveness, a legislative rethink of indirect taxation of trusts and other destination constraints is desirable. In fact, the current tax rules of these negotiation models, in addition to giving rise to numerous disputes, often discourage their use in regulating new interests and needs.

Electronic Signature of the Taxpayer in Times of COVID-19

Author(s): Łukasz Goździaszek / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

The aim of the article is to present the legal provisions used to identify taxpayers (and similarly other entities) using electronic communication in the times of COVID-19, in the light of the construction of public ICT systems for submitting declarations and applications. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the IT transformation, including the benefits of switching to digital tools, unless the legislator had already imposed an obligation to use electronic communication. For tax purposes, the range of possible signatures has not been limited to a qualified electronic signature, a trusted signature, a personal signature, and possibly a simple identity verification mechanism using an account in an ICT system secured only with a password. It is often used to sign the so-called “authorization data” (“tax data”). The new facilitations in the field of creating a trusted profile should translate into the popularization of the trusted signature, especially as there are more and more non-tax online services provided by public entities.

The taxpayer’s claim under the tax law relationship of a tax overpayment

Author(s): Adam Drozdek / Language(s): English Issue: 33 (1)/2021

The purpose of the research undertaken in this paper is to analyse the tax claim. It is an institution that has its source in a subjective right. As part of a tax claim, a taxable entity may assert its rights resulting from the obligation-involving tax law relationship of a tax overpayment. The institution of crediting overpayments towards tax arrears and current obligations is a special type of tax claims securing the exercise of the rights of taxable entities under the tax law relationship. The basic research method used for the purposes of the analysis undertaken in this publication is a comprehensive analysis of the normative status of the issues analysed and of selected views of legal commentators and of judicial and administrative decisions.

The right to privacy and the protection of personal data: Convention 108 as a universal and timeless standard for policymakers in Europe and beyond

Author(s): Urszula Góral / Language(s): English Issue: 33 (1)/2021

It is widely recognised that the first binding legal act regarding the protection of personal data of an international nature is Convention 108, adopted on 28 January 1981. By virtue of the Convention, the Parties are required to apply in their domestic legal order the principles introduced by the Council of Europe to ensure guarantees for the fundamental human rights of all individuals with regard to the processing of personal data. This paper refers to Convention 108 as the foundation for European and international data protection laws in a number of European countries. It has influenced policies and legislation far beyond Europe’s borders. However, due to the development of ICT tools that permit establishing new data-driven business models based on data-processing systems, Convention 108 has become subject to modernisation. At the same time, intensive negotiations were conducted in the EU concerning a new data-protection package to reform the data-protection system, and many other countries around the world have introduced provisions related to the processing of personal data. This paper analyses the impact of the standards set out in Convention 108 on the decision-making process and its global dimension.

Oddziaływanie klauzuli przeciwko unikaniu opodatkowania na indywidualne interpretacje przepisów prawa podatkowego – wnioski de lege lata i de lege ferenda

Author(s): Tomasz Stachurski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 33 (1)/2021

The purpose of writing this article is to show and assess the influence that is currently being exerted by the tax avoidance clause on individual interpretations of tax law provisions. It is an important issue, because strong interaction has been noticed between these law institutions as well as the different purposes for establishing them. The author carries out a critical analysis of this phenomenon noting that it strongly limits basic functions of individual interpretations which serve to protect taxpayers’ rights. Moreover, numerous threats are noticed and demonstrated. They are mainly related to the multiplicity of indefinite, evaluative phrases used in the regulation of the tax avoidance clause. The author analyses and interprets laws in force and examines judicial decisions of administrative courts as well as views of legal scholars and commentators. The thesis of this paper stipulates that the current form of provisions violates the constitutional principle of the protection of citizens’ trust in the state and its legislation and the principle of proportionality. Also, the article expresses an opinion that authorities now have been given too great administrative discretion in refusing to issue an individual interpretation. Therefore, the de lege ferenda conclusions are formulated intended to improve the negative consequences of the tax avoidance clause’s impact on individual interpretations.

Wirtualna Debata Akademicka o nauczaniu zdalnym, Szczecin, 3 grudnia 2020 roku

Author(s): Paweł M. Nowotko / Language(s): Polish Issue: 33 (1)/2021

Challenges on Urban SocioSpatial Cohesion. The Case of Social Housing Complexes in the Regional Administrative Area of Piraeus in Greece

Author(s): Evgenia Tousi / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

The regional administrative area of Piraeus has long been a suitable case study for analyzing the impact of social housing. The six municipalities that constitute this urban agglomeration have been strongly connected with the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922 and the consequent rehabilitation of the refugee population during the 30s. Moreover, after WWII, more social housing complexes had been constructed in the urban area around central Piraeus, representing different architectural types and principles. Today, they host various socio-economic population groups. Economic immigrants and households of elderly people are some of the vulnerable households that reside today in the social housing apartments. One major issue is the poor housing conditions and the low level of preservation associated with high rates of poverty and social exclusion. This paper attempts to depict the contemporary situation in the area by providing thematic cartography with the aim of indicating crucial enclaves in need of urban regeneration.

Exigențele rapoartelor organismelor de evaluare a conformității în jurisprudența Curții de Apel București și principiul transparenței în achizițiile publice

Author(s): Laura-Alexandra Farca / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 3/2021

The article is a favorable comment on a recent public procurement case law of Bucharest Court of Appeal in two judgements where the successful bidder submitted test reports issued by conformity assessment bodies. Shortly, these reports were in breach of transparency principle regarding the technical specifications included in the tender documents, as a fundamental principle of public procurement law.