The impact of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Polish legal order

Współautorstwo: Taborowski, Maciej

Article 47 of the EU Charter and Effective Judicial Protection. T. 2, The National Courts' Perspectives / Matteo Bonelli, Mariolina Eliantonio, Giulia Gentile (eds.) – Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2023, s. 181-200.

The chapter looks closely at the role of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EUCFR) in the Polish legal order with particular regard to the case law of the Polish courts. It attempts to grasp a number of developments in the contemporary Polish legal order that have determined the most important fields of application of Article 47 EUCFR. Basically, the vast majority of references to Article 47 EUCFR in Polish case law were made in connection with Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) case law – ie, either on the grounds of preliminary references or by referring to the CJEU decision that applied this provision. With this in mind, this chapter analyses two of these fields which proved to be most specific for the Polish legal system: first, the interrelation between the right to effective judicial protection and the rule of law; and, second, the impact of Article 47 EUCFR on the consumer financial services sector. In the former, the chapter takes an in-depth look at the dialogue between the Polish courts and the CJEU triggered by the rule-of-law crisis that has been ongoing in Poland since 2015. In this regard, particular attention has been paid to the ‘rule of law’ dimension of Article 47 EUCFR, invoked by the CJEU as a source of standards for judicial independence and the domestic appointment procedure for judges. Regarding consumer issues, the text analyses the profound change effected in Polish consumer protection through CJEU judgments that built on the notion of consumer protection under Article 47 EUCFR. By responding to preliminary references from the Polish courts, the CJEU took a critical stance towards Polish substantive and procedural civil law rules, aiming to eliminate those that hinder effective judicial protection of consumer interests.

Consumer Law for a Post-Consumer Society

Journal of European Consumer and Market Law 2023, nr 1, s. 1–3.

The notion of ‘post-consumerism’ has been gaining popularity in the social sciences for quite some time now. It portrays a world in which traditional consumption – namely, the acquisition of things and services – loses its importance under pressure from consumers who want to consume 'less' or consume ‘differently’. The consumer market has been witnessing a growing strive for ethical consumption, which aims to protect the environment, fundamental rights and other political values. Furthermore consumers are increasingly interested in gaining satisfaction by striving for experiences that can enrich their lives or provide positive emotions (fostering social relations, creating and sharing one's own creations or speaking out in public discourse. The text investigates the consequences of this evolution for the EU consumer policy and the architecture of consumer law. Especially, it takes a critical account of the newly enacted Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which try to address the new types of individual-business interaction, but which at the same time mostly refrain from addressing the consumer issue straightforwardly.

Law and Political Economy (LPE) in Central and Eastern Europe : an introduction

Studia Prawa Prywatnego 2023, nr 3, s. 65-72.

Współautorstwo: Smoleńska, Agnieszka

The text introduces a series of articles on law and political economy that will be published in this and subsequent issues of Studia Prawa Prywatnego. These studies are the result of the conference „Law and Political Economy - Central and Eastern European Perspectives” held on 21 March 2022 at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Opening this collection, the text characterizes political economy as a research approach in legal sciences and discusses its renaissance over the past decade in the US and Europe. In this regard, the text focuses on the perspective of private law and market regulation. It also draws attention to the special challenges of political economy from the perspective of Central and Eastern European countries, especially from the vantage point of their post-communist transition and its economic, social and legal spillovers. It also introduces the issues of the following studies published in Private Law Studies.

Tekst jest wprowadzeniem do serii artykułów poświęconych prawu i ekonomii politycznej, które zostaną opublikowane w tym i w kolejnych numerach Studiów Prawa Prywatnego. Opracowania te są wynikiem konferencji „Law and Political Economy - Central and Eastern European Perspectives” zorganizowanej 21.3.2022 r. w Instytucie Nauk Prawnych Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Otwierając ten zbiór, tekst charakteryzuje ekonomię polityczną jako podejście badawcze w naukach prawnych oraz omawia jej renesans, jaki następuje w ostatniej dekadzie w USA i w Europie. Tekst skupia się w tym zakresie na perspektywie prawa prywatnego i regulacji rynku. Zwraca on także uwagę na szczególne wyzwania ekonomii politycznej z perspektywy państw Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej, zwłaszcza z punktu widzenia ich transformacji po upadku komunizmu oraz jej następstw ekonomicznych, społecznych i prawnych. Wprowadza on także w problematykę kolejnych opracowań opublikowanych w Studiach Prawa Prywatnego.

[Recencja: Fink von Udo, Peter-Christian Müller-Graff, Krzysztof Oplustil, Przemyslaw Roguski (red.) Deutsch-polnische Rechtsgemeinschaft : Gemeinsam in Europa, gemeinsam für Europa, Nomos, Baden-Baden 2021, 161 s., ISBN 978-3-8487-7719-8]

Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht 2023, nr 87, s. 213-217.

Freedom of Speech, Consumer Protection and the Duty to Contract

Civil Courts and the European Polity : The Constitutional Role of Private Law Adjudication in Europe / Chantal Mak, Betül Kas (eds.) – Oxford: Hart Publishing, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023 , s. 123-138.

Despite this plethora of accounts, certain aspects of the liaison between fundamental rights and private law are still a riddle. One such area is the relationship between consumer protection and freedom of expression. In an interesting turn of events, three high courts on either side of the Atlantic grappled with this problem almost in parallel. First came the Supreme Court of the United States judgment in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission of 4 June 2018 , which was followed closely by the Supreme Court of Poland judgment in National Public Prosecutor's Office v. A.J. (known commonly as the “printer from Łódź case”) of 14 June 2018 and by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom decision in Lee v Ashers Baking Company Ltd and others of 10 October 2018. All these decisions addressed the same pivotal question: To what extent may the freedom to express one’s moral or religious attitudes interfere with the obligation to enter into or perform on an agreement? But despite these parallels, each judgment developed a different argument about the juxtaposition of freedom of expression, consumer protection and market liberty. The following remarks delve into the nature of both the parallels and the dissimilarities to explore some overarching ramifications of these decisions for fundamental rights and consumer law. In so doing, the paper builds a ‘missing link’ between freedom of speech and consumer law in order to proceed towards a few key questions: How does freedom of speech – as a consumer value – intertwine with freedom of contract? What impact may a balance struck between the consumer’s and the professional’s free expression have on freedom of contract? In particular, is free expression a permissible justification for selecting only particular consumers as contracting partners while rejecting others? In conclusion, the text introduces and develops the concept of a ‘public duty’ on the part of the professional to enter contracts with consumers without speech-based discriminatory patterns.

Non-mandatory rules and transition of contract law

EU and Private International Law : Trending Topics in Contracts, Successions, and Civil Liability / Bettina Heiderhoff, Ilaria Queirolo (eds.) – Napoli: Editoriale Scientifica, 2023, s. 47-69.

The enforcement of EU consumer law

Współautorstwo: Riefa, Christine

Research Handbook on the Enforcement of EU Law / Miroslava Scholten (ed.) – Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023, s. 350-364.

The chapter unpacks the key features of the existing enforcement architecture of EU consumer law paying particular attention to its dual (private-public) nature. The chapter delves into the dynamic of relations between the EU and the Member States to better understand how EU consumer law enforcement is co-created and what forces drive this process. The chapter pays special attention to the ongoing transformation of the enforcement framework, from a more collaborative model of enforcement (based on appreciation of the Member States’ procedural autonomy), towards a downstream ordering (centred around regulations and maximum harmonization directives which dominate the present-day EU consumer law). The chapter concludes by taking a glimpse into future developments trajectories, especially with the emergence of cooperative enforcement schemes involving both public enforcers and private entities (such as online platforms).