No. 3 (41)

The Constitution of the Republic of Poland protects property and the right of inheritance which is one of the fundamental constitutional rights. Any legislative
changes in this regard should include the broad constitutional protection of these rights. The author attempts to answer the question of whether the proposed changes to the provisions of Book IV of the Civil Code fall within the scope of the constitutional protection of the right to property and inheritance.

Failure to fulfill family obligations concerning the testator may be the reason for exclusion from inheritance according to the rules constituting the unworthiness of inheritance. Only if it is a spe-
cial type of tortious act and intentional crime committed by the successor against the testator it will be qualified by the Civil Court as a serious crime according to Article 928 § 1 p. 1 Civil Code. That admissibility of applying these rules to the unworthiness of inheritance depends on the evaluations by the criminal law standards and may lead to conclusions that are difficult to accept. First of all, intentional behaviours with the ill will of the successor do not always fulfil the statutory criteria of a special type of tortious act, especially concerning such crimes against the family and care as qualified non-alimentation (art. 209 § 1a Penal Code) or abandoning (art. 210 Penal Code). Second, to qualify these crimes as serious ones may be impossible because of too low a statutory threat. At the same time failure to fulfil the family obligation, especially concerning minors, should be stigmatized both from a moral and legal point of view and result not only in immaterial consequences but also in the loss of property, including inheritance. Especially a juvenile heir has no opportunity to sanction, including disinheritance and exclusion from inheritance according to negative will, behaviours of his statutory heirs in case of persistent failure to fulfil family obligations. De lege lata the only institution that can be useful in such a case is the unworthiness of inheritance. Because of its limited application resulting from the closed catalogue of causes a new solution should sanction undignified behaviours of heirs against testators like failure to fulfill family obligations, irrespective of legal admissibility of disinheritance by testators. It is crucial that regulations on the unworthiness of inheritance could prevent cases in which common
sense of justice would be violated because of the established  order of inheritance.

The inheritance law is an important area of clash of various values which justify the adopted legal regulations. A particular example of this problem is drawing up a will under the influence of defects in a declaration of will, aimed at, on the one hand, ensuring the protection of the testator’s last will, and, on the other, to limit the possibility of invoking the objection of defectiveness of a will after the preclusive periods provided for in Art. 945 § 2 of the Civil Code (aimed at ensuring an appropriate level of legal security, including in particular the need to stabilize legal relations arising after the death of the testator). At the same time, the adopted legal regulation may, however, constitute a source of legal consequences unacceptable from the point of view of the social sense of justice. In a special situation, due to the unequivocal exclusion of the possibility of challenging a defective will after preclusive periods, it is possible to determine the fate of the inherited estate on a basis of the will that does not reflect the actual and free will of the testator. The author aims at resolving the conflict of competing values constituting the justification of the adopted legal regulations, which requires reference to the axiological assumptions of the constitutional right of inheritance.

The progressing tendency of lengthening court proceedings for the confirmation of the acquisition of inheritance, as well as the heterogeneity observed in practice in court decisions confirming the acquisition of inheritance, creates the need to search for new legislative solutions. Such solutions would be aimed at the improvement and acceleration of the proceedings while maintaining the legal protection of the correct determination of the legal succession resulting from the inheritance. The proposed changes to the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure are primarily aimed at improvement of the procedure for confirming the acquisition of inheritance
by extending the cognizance of the inheritance court to include the competence to issue a permit to submit a declaration of acquisition of the inheritance directly or rejection of inheritance on behalf of the minor or the person under care, without the need to initiate separate proceedings before the guardianship court. At the same time, the proposed changes define the obligatory circle of heirs at law who must be summoned to participate in the proceedings for the acquisition of inheritance. This author attempts to analyze the proposed regulation from the point of view of the practical efficiency and speed of inheritance proceedings, which, however, cannot be a priority over the correct determination of the designated testator’s circle of heirs.

The subject of the article is the issue of legal conditions of declarations on the waiver of inheritance submitted by parents on behalf of a minor child. The author characterizes proposed legislative changes both in theoretical and practical terms, which results in presenting the assessment of solutions enabling the reconciliation of the requirement to obtain a permit from the guardianship court to accept or reject the inheritance on behalf of the child (Art. 101 § 3 of the Civil Code) within the time limit set by Art. 1015 of the Civil Code. The main subject of the author’s analysis is therefore the draft act amending the Civil Code and certain acts of 14.07.2022 and its assessment both in relation to the proposed substantive changes and procedural regulations.

The author examines the amendment to the Polish Civil Code related to exploitation (Art. 388 of the Civil Code). He presents its genesis, examples of solutions in other countries, and model rules of European private law (DCFR) applied in the situation of non-equivalence of services and the protection of the weaker party against exploitation.
The author includes recently adopted additional premises for exploitation, such as ‘lack of discernment with regard to the subject of the contract’. The author introduces the presumption of a gross disproportion between the services of the contract parties when the value of the service provided by one party at the moment of conclusion of the contract exceeds the value of the reciprocal service at least twice. Additionally, the author discusses the extension of deadlines for commencing court proceedings to protect the weaker party and a list of rights, such as the right to demand a change of the service value due to an inadequate contract or even its dissolution. In conclusion the author presented an assessment of new solutions. The conducted critical analysis includes a list of cases that can be qualified as exploitation and the relationship between exploitation and other legal concepts protecting the weaker market participant (abusive contractual clauses).

The latest amendment to the Civil Code which came into force on June 30, 2022, changes the law regarding the requirement of a notarial deed when contributing land to a farmers’ production cooperative for the land to become co-owned by the existing owners. In the contemporary socio-economic reality, the exception referred to in Art. 159 of the Civil Code, did not fulfil its goals. The amendment will increase the legal certainty of real estate transactions, which will be concluded under general rules, in the form of a notarial deed as outlined in Art. 158 of the Civil Code. At the same time, the legislator did not provide for the repeal of Art. 277 § 2 of the Civil Code, which excludes establishing usufruct for the benefit of a farmers’ production cooperative from the obligation to perform it by signing a notarial deed.

The author analyzes the legal consequences of the incapacitation of a minor. She distinguishes the sphere of extending the authority of parents and the sphere of its limitation and balances the shortcomings and benefits that result in the incapacitation of the child. It has been shown that the automatism, routine, and rigidity of restrictions on parental authority resulting from Art. 108 of the
Family and Guardianship Code cannot be approved by contemporary society, which values more and more individual approaches to the individual, as well as in the light of the standards resulting from the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The author proposes an amendment to this regulation to enable the court to flexibly define the scope of parents’ freedom in exercising parental
authority, tailored to the needs of a specific case. The danger of a temporary state of unrepresentation of the child was also noticed when the incapacitated child reaches the age of majority and parental authority expires. Therefore, the author proposes introducing a mechanism for the automatic transformation of parental authority into legal guardianship.

The authors discuss selected legal problems related to intellectual property and artificial intelligence, mostly the principle of a territorialism of intellectual property. The need to reformulate the conflict-of-law rules for intellectual property was identified as the most urgent legislative task. They end the article with a critical assessment of the Rome II Regulation
concerning the proper law for liability arising from infringement of intellectual property rights.

This author deals with the controversial issue, both in doctrine and jurisprudence, of whether a partner joining a civil law partnership is liable for the obligations of this part-
nership at the time of joining it. There have been many opinions within the legal doctrine on this subject, also in recent years. They did not lead to the settlement of the dispute. The author aims to develop the previously emerging concept that the key to the resolution is to
refer to the content of Art. 554 of the Civil Code used – depending on the situation – either directly or analogously.
The liability of such a partner would be limited, narrower than in the case of the liability of other partners. This would be a compromise between the existing positions. At the same time, it would not worsen the situation of creditors who can always seek satisfaction of their claims in the assets of partners who had been such at the time when the debt emerged, and therefore whose situation is not worsened by accession. On the other hand, in such a situation, the postulate that the acceding partner should not be burdened with liability “for activities over which he had no influence and of a size that he could not take into account” remains fulfilled. Such a partner will be responsible to the extent that he knew or should have known at the time of submitting the declaration of will to join the partnership.

The author compares the scope of legal and international protection of the child’s welfare and its freedom from violence with Polish regulations, especially in terms of the concept of parental authority and parents’ rights to care or contact
with the child. The proper functioning of the family seems to be crucial for guaranteeing the child’s right, which is its well-being – understood as the basic principle (the principle of the best interests of the child). For this reason, the author analyses whether Polish law retains the priority of the best interests of the child and whether in law, doctrine, and jurisprudence parents’ authority is understood in terms of parental responsibility for the implementation of the principle of the best interests of the child and its best development, and whether the law effectively protects children in a situation of family dysfunction or a parent’s behaviour that
threatens the child’s welfare.

The author assesses the legal nature of the criminal act of organizing or conducting gambling games. The author contests the Supreme Court’s view that it is a permanent offense. This is because it is a multi-factor offense, i.e. one that involves more than one act, rather than the creation and maintenance of an unlawful state. On the other hand, the author largely shares the position of the Supreme Court regarding the view that arranging or conducting games in differ-
ent places are two different prohibited acts, however, exceptionally it is possible to recognise these behaviors as a single prohibited act.

The author aims at presenting and analysing the legal status of conscientious exemptions from mandatory vaccination in the United States. He applies formal-dogmatic approach, as well as a historical-legal method in the paper. The author places the issue in the context of demands for conscientious exemptions from laws of general applicability that increasingly occur in various spheres of social life. The author outlines the historical
background of vaccination hesitancy, the first regulations concerning mandatory vaccination, and exemptions from it. Arguments raised by proponents of the anti-vaccine move-
ment are presented, equally with sociological studies on them. As far as American regulations are concerned, the author comments on the historical development of the mandatory vaccination laws in the USA, their underpinning in the Supreme Court case law, and the first legal disputes that arose around the issue under study. The author examines current legal status of the problem with references to the recent case law of state courts, and possible development trends. The author convinces that exemptions under study should be recognised as an example of the conscientious clause; they rely on states’ lawmakers’ decisions and their application is restricted to persons recalling conscientious reasons, inlay or religious form.

The author discusses the legal framework of clinical trials on vulnerable subjects set out in Regulation (EU) No 536/2014 of the European Parliament and the Council of 16 April 2014 on clinical trials on medicinal products for human use and repealing Directive 2001/20/EC. It addresses the issue of changes introduced by Regulation No 536/2014 to the current legal situation in the context of demands for wider involvement of vulnerable subjects in medical research and conflicts of values generated by these demands. Although Regulation No 536/2014 enumerates more vulnerable groups than Directive 2001/20/EC, it specifies the conditions of clinical trials for only four of them: minors, incapacitated subjects, subjects in emergencies, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women. The participation of these groups in clinical trials requires meeting additional conditions, i.e. subsidiarity of
given research, pursuing a legally defined research objective, and risk minimisation. From the perspective of the human dignity principle, the most controversial of these conditions is the admissibility of a clinical trial without individual direct benefit. As compared to Directive 2001/20/EC, Regulation No 536/2014 extends the admissibility of clinical trials involving incapacitated subjects but tightens the conditions for conducting them on minors. RegulationNo 536/2014 also strengthens the protection of the autonomy of subjects incapable of giving
consent aiming at their maximum inclusion in the decision-making process.

Glyphosate is an active substance used in plant protection products that has been a controversy for years. The approval period for glyphosate ends on December 15, 2022, and as a consequence, its safety is once again a subject of lively public debate. Its approval for 2017-2022 was preceded by strong public unrest that took the form of the European Citizens’ Initiative to ban glyphosate and protect people and the environment from toxic pesticides.
In the authors’ opinion, it had an important impact on the European Union - not only in the most obvious way, i.e. as a result of the related legislative changes but also in the often over-looked non-normative sphere. The authors analyze the impact of this initiative on the development of EU regulatory legislation and other areas of its activity, with particular stress put on the transparency of decision- making related to food safety in terms of society’s expectations.

This research was funded in part by National Science Centre, Poland, grant number: 2021/41/N/HS5/01316. For the purpose of Open Access, the authors has applied a CC-BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.

On December 17, 2020, The Court of Justice issued its judgment in case C-336/19 and stressed the crucial importance of animal welfare in the slaughter procedure regardless of the purpose it serves. The Court, thus, conducted an interpretation of Article 13 TFEU taking into account the changing context and nature of the action of the European Union as a whole. In a similar matter, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal issued an opinion on 10
December 2014 and held that an absolute ban on ritual slaughter is nevertheless irreconcilable with the freedom to manifest the religion. The authors’ analysis presents the dogmatic layer of both judgments in this, in many respects controversial, area – ritual slaughter.

The author considers the use of electronic means of communication in Eastern European countries and an indication of the threats to cyberspace and the measures ensuring its protection. The author aims to determine how the use of ICT affects the socio-economic development of Eastern European countries. In connection with the above, based on examples of cyberspace security breaches, consideration should be given to the effectiveness of actions taken to protect or minimize the negative consequences of attacks. The author answers the question of how important the cybersecurity policy in the context of the socio-economic development of Eastern European countries is. The author uses a formal-legal and comparative research method, which makes confirming the research hypothesis that socio-economic development is closely related to information and communication technologies possible. The research carried out has a special dimension as part of the evaluation of ICT development in Eastern European countries. Research methods include the analysis of materials: selected cases, and basic legal acts with the use of the literature on the subject.