Aspekty cywilnoprawne martwego urodzenia dziecka (zagadnienia wybrane)

Status prawny dziecka martwo urodzonego / redakcja naukowa Paweł Sobczyk. Warszawa : Wydawnictwo Instytutu Wymiaru Sprawiedliwości, 2024, s. 11-34.

Poland: ineffectiveness of legislation in defeating the demographic crisis

Demographic challenges in Central Europe : legal and family policy response / edited by Tímea Barzó. Budapeszt : Central European Academic Publishing, 2024, s. 477-523.

The author presents the regulations of Polish law and considers whether they can affect the procreative decisions of both Polish men and women. For the past almost thirty years, the reproductive rate in Poland has not exceeded1.5, while replacement of generations can be achieved at a rate of 2.1 children per woman of childbearing age. The demographic crisis is the biggest social policy problem in Poland today. Analysing the current law, the author reflects on possible solutions in the future, also referring to solutions that have been abandoned but were in force earlier. He supports all considerations with data drawn from the Population Census conducted in Poland in 2021, the Demographic Yearbook of the Central Statistical Office for 2022, and demographic literature. He places the greatest emphasis on the analysis of family laws, especially marriage and divorce regulations since demographers see a correlation between these regulations and procreation decisions. However, the correlation seems to be small. The conclusions drawn are disappointing; the disappointment applies both to the assessment of the lack of influence of family law regulations on procreation decisions and social law. The latter has recently undergone significant changes in Poland and they were aimed at ensuring economic stability for the family after the birth of a child. Moreover, no connection between the abortion ban and the increase in births has been found. In fact, a sharp decline in births occurred when the abortion ban was introduced. Besides, the introduction in 2015 of the law allowing in vitro procedures did not improve the poor demographic situation either.

Autonomia w prawie rodzinnym : sprawy o rozwód

Rejent 2024, nr 11, s. 62-78.

The Role of Prof. Tadeusz Smyczyński as a Drafter of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae. Legal Studies 2024, t. 13, nr 1, s. 5–22.

The author describes the role played in the creation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by Prof. Tadeusz Smyczyński, a Polish lawyer who all his life was associated with the Institute of Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, but whose merits are not widely known even in Poland. The author, who is a disciple of Prof. Smyczyński, describes the latter’s career, his enormous scientific achievements (especially in the area of family law), and the role of his teachers, who were the outstanding civilists profs. Alfred Ohanowicz and Zbigniew Radwański. In describing Prof. Smyczyński’s work on the draft United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the author also considers the specific socio-political context of the 1970s and 1980s. The specific characteristics of doing research and scientific work in Poland over more than half a century before and after the 1989 regime change are also addressed. Particular attention is paid to the main topics of the work on the draft Convention, including debates on the two key issues of the meaning of child (Who may be considered a child? Who do the rights contained in the Convention concern?) and the parent– child relationship (What role should be assigned to the state? How active should it be in relation to the family and the child?). For Prof. Smyczyński, these were the most important issues on which he focused, and they also had a significant impact on the content of the formulations adopted in the Convention. They are still fundamental, and the dispute over the protection of the lives of unborn children and the legal position of parents is currently gaining momentum. At the end, the author presents Prof. Smyczyński’s views on the Convention and its role as expressed in a conversation they had in the fall of 2023. On the one hand, Prof. Smyczyński feels satisfied with the results of his erstwhile work, but, on the other, regrets that the world is moving in the wrong direction on the issues dearest to him.