Articles – Page 3

The establishment of the Institute of National Remembrance as the authority responsible for prosecuting communist and Nazi crimes: An analysis of the efficiency of the IPN Act

Mgr Przemysław Pasierb

University of Zielona Góra

English abstract: The purpose of this article is to analyse the rationale behind the establishment of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) and to assess whether its original objectives have been achieved. It is important to note that, in a democratic state, a rational legislator must consider not only the intended outcomes of the enacted provisions but also their efficiency. Applying economic analysis of law, the study examines whether these considerations are reflected in the operation of the IPN Act.

The article employs the doctrinal legal research method to investigate the actual effect of the provisions. Additionally, it utilizes the empirical method to explore the rationale guiding the legislator during the legislative process. Based on available documentation, the fundamental assumptions that were binding on the drafters of the Act are identified. Legislative records indicate that the IPN Act was enacted to enhance the efficiency of proceedings related to prosecuting crimes against the Polish Nation, expand the definition of crimes from Stalinist to communist offences, and separate prosecutors within the IPN from the general prosecutorial system. However, the central research thesis of this study asserts that these goals have not been achieved in accordance with the principles of legal efficiency. The number of resolved cases is disproportionately low relative to the incurred costs. Furthermore, due to the passage of time, many proceedings are unlikely to be initiated or will be discontinued due to the death of suspects – a trend observed in recent years. It should be emphasized that this issue has not been addressed in existing legal scholarship, nor has it been examined through methods aimed at assessing the efficiency of legal provisions.

Keywords: Institute of National Remembrance, efficiency of law, effectiveness of law, Law & Economics (economic analysis of law)

Language: Polish

Published: Number 3(44)/2025, pp. 55-69.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.3.55

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Number of downloads: 78

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On the threats to democracy and the rule of law: The philosophy of total states in the views of Szymon Rundstein and Maciej Starzewski

Dr hab. Sławomir Tkacz, prof. UŚ

Dr hab. Aleksandra Wentkowska, prof. UŚ

University of Silesia in Katowice

English abstract: One of the most important issues recently addressed in literature is the threats to democracy and the rule of law. It is pointed out that the need to verify the role and tasks of key political institutions, primarily the state, is determined by the nature and dynamics of changes in the modern world. The issue of threats to democracy and the crisis of the rule of law has frequently been discussed in Polish theoretical and doctrinal legal works produced after 1926. Authors such as Szymon Rundstein and Maciej Starzewski often raised concerns about the dangers associated with phenomena referred to as “anti-constitutional tendencies”. The studies they published addressed both internal threats and the dangers arising from the formation of fascist states and the Soviet state. The findings made back then remain highly relevant in the present day. Therefore, in the context of the challenges faced by legal practice and legal science today, it seems justified to recall the conclusions formulated nearly 100 years ago.

Keywords: Fascism, democracy, rule of law, total state, authoritarianism, civil rights, Nazi and Soviet totalisms

Language: English

Published: Number 3(44)/2025, pp. 38-54.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.3.38

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Number of downloads: 163

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Animal welfare under socialism: Anthropocentrism, instrumentalization, and ideology in the GDR

Dr hab. Martyna Łaszewska-Hellriegel, prof. UZ

University of Zielona Góra

Pomeranian University of Słupsk

English abstract: This article investigates the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) approach to animal welfare through the lens of Marxist ideology, focusing on the tension between utilitarian principles and anthropocentric values. It aims to analyze how the GDR’s socialist framework, which prioritized collective welfare and economic productivity, influenced its policies toward animals, often reducing them to mere instruments for human benefit. The study assumes that the GDR’s Marxist ideology shaped its policies and practices, including those related to animal welfare. It employs a methodological approach that comprises an analysis of official state policies, propaganda materials, and dissenting voices from that period. By examining these sources, the article seeks to uncover the ideological underpinnings and practical outcomes of the GDR’s approach to animal welfare. The research reveals that the GDR’s animal welfare policies were deeply rooted in anthropocentrism and utilitarianism, prioritizing industrial efficiency and agricultural output over ethical considerations. Despite its socialist rhetoric, the GDR often treated animals as economic resources, highlighting a contradiction between its professed commitment to socialist humanism and its actual treatment of non-human beings. The study also identifies broader ideological conflicts inherent in applying Marxist principles to animal welfare, particularly the difficulty in reconciling economic priorities with ethical concerns. This article contributes to the growing field of interspecies ethics by providing a unique examination of animal welfare within a state socialist system. It offers new insights into the complexities of applying Marxist ideology to non-human entities, shedding light on the tensions between utilitarian practices and ethical imperatives. By analysing the GDR’s approach, the study not only enriches historical understanding but also provides a framework for contemporary discussions on sustainable agriculture, animal rights, and the ethical dimensions of human-animal relationships.

Keywords: GDR (German Democratic Republic), animal welfare, Marxist ideology, anthropocentrism, utilitarianism, animal rights

Language: English

Published: Number 3(44)/2025, pp. 20-37.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.3.20

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Number of downloads: 117

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The influence of Marxism on the interpretation of law in Poland (some remarks concerning the theory of legal interpretation by Jerzy Wróblewski)

Dr hab. Joanna Helios, prof. UWr

Dr hab. Wioletta Jedlecka, prof. UWr

University of Wrocław

English abstract: The aim of this article is an attempt to conceptualize Jerzy Wroblewski’s theory of legal interpretation in the context of examining the influence of Marxism on interpretative practices. One of the legal theorists who undertook the task of demonstrating that Jerzy Wroblewski’s theory of interpretation is characterized by a philosophical stance rooted in the adoption of Marxist premises as the foundational philosophical assumptions underlying theoretical activities in legal science is Zbigniew Pulka. This article discusses three topics: (1) the Marxist philosophical stance – Marxist axiology, (2) people’s legal interpretation, (3) the clarificatory concept of interpretation.

Keywords: interpretation, Marxism, communism, J. Wróblewski, clarificatory concept of interpretation

Language: English

Published: Number 3(44)/2025, pp. 7-19.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.3.7

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Number of downloads: 146

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The Professor, the Political Activist, and the Professional on the Tightropes of Culture Wars: Stanley Fish’s Versions of Academic Freedom

Dr Jakub Łakomy

University of Wrocław

English abstract: Today, academic freedom is increasingly contested amid intensifying culture wars and political polarisation, both within and beyond university walls. Traditional liberal and critical defences of academic freedom—grounded in universal rights, public good, or transformative critique – appear conceptually fragile and normatively overstretched. This paper reconstructs and critically evaluates Stanley Fish’s deflationary and professionalist conception of academic freedom, as developed in Versions of Academic Freedom. Drawing on Fish’s neopragmatist and anti-foundationalist framework, the paper argues that academic freedom cannot be defended by appealing to abstract ideals or external social functions, but only by reference to the immanent logic of disciplinary practice. Fish’s model posits that academic freedom is the limited freedom to perform professional tasks – teaching and research – according to internal standards of scholarly rigour, not a licence for personal expression or political activism. While his approach offers a coherent and context-sensitive alternative to foundationalist accounts, the paper argues that it is insufficient to address the ethical and political challenges of contemporary academia. The paper proposes that defending academic freedom today requires both Fish’s realism about professional constraints and a critical awareness of the political forces shaping knowledge production – an uncomfortable balancing act on the tightrope of post-foundational thought.

Keywords: academic freedom, professionalism, neopragmatism.

Language: English

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 136-153.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.136

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Number of downloads: 120

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The judge as a promoter of peace

Dr hab. Adam Zienkiewicz, prof. UWM

University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

English abstract: The principal aim of this text is to draw attention to the singular role of a “promoter of peace”, which may be fulfilled nowadays both by a lawyer who provides legal assistance to a client and a judge. Discussing the matter from the standpoint of legal theory, the study will thus first examine the difference between judicial adjudication of disputes and their resolution, including methods based on the practice of peacemaking, which promotes peaceful interpersonal relations and positive personal transformation of the parties to disputes to establish between them a state known as positive peace. Subsequently, a dogmatic-legal analysis will seek to identify selected applicable regulations which offer the possibility of implementing, on the initiative or with the assistance of a judge, amicable modes of resolving legal disputes pending before a Polish civil court. In the final part of the study, the domestic normative perspective in the field of civil law will be supplemented with major model assumptions and objectives of a special type of court, a so-called Problem-Solving Court (developing especially in the USA), where the perpetrator of an offence who is subject to conventional court proceedings, is given an additional opportunity to effectively counter the causes of lawbreaking and conflicts with members of the community (e.g., ones stemming from drug or alcohol addiction abuse or mental disorders), based on the so-called problem-solving program tailored to the individual, which is coordinated by the judge and implemented by an interdisciplinary team of experts. These deliberations lead to the conclusion that the catalogue of legislative solutions in this respect is gradually expanding, creating a real opportunity to choose and apply various conciliatory methods of managing legal disputes, also on the initiative or with the active participation of the judge, who promotes the restoration of peaceful social relations.

Keywords: judge, peacemaker, Alternative Dispute Resolution, problem-solving court

Language: English

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 120-135.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.120

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Number of downloads: 165

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Critical Approaches to International Law according to China Miéville and Bhupinder S. Chimni

Dr hab. Tomasz Srogosz, prof. UKEN

University of the National Education Commission in Kraków

English abstract: Research purpose: The aim of the article is to assess the usefulness of Marxist approaches to international law in the discussion on the existing and developing international legal order. It is a proposal to enrich the theoretical foundations of the discourse on international law that takes place within the walls of Polish scientific and academic centres. Questions arise as to whether Marxist approaches to the law of nations solve the problem of the possibility of changes taking into account the positions of the “ordinary people”, i.e., the Marxian working class, within the existing imperial international legal order? Or maybe this order ruthlessly defends the interests of the capitalist class, which makes any evolutionary change beneficial to the “ordinary people” impossible? Research assumptions/methodology: The article uses the legal theory method, which boils down to analysing doctrinal views on the Marxist theory of law, starting with Marx and Engels, to Pashukanis, and ending with Chimni and Miéville.
Basic theses/findings: The presented Marxist approaches to international law (Chimni and Miéville) differ in terms of the theoretical basis (Miéville drew on Pashuknis and Chimni directly on Marx), which in turn leads to different views on the essence of international law (Chimni proclaims the “class approach” while Miéville builds his theory around Pashukanis’ “commodity theory of law”) and the possibility of reforming the law of nations. Originality of results/epistemic value: Chimni’s approach turns out to be more useful, as, unlike Miéville, he sees the possibility of changing the imperial international legal order serving the transnational capitalist class within the international rule of law and with the use of human rights. Miéville’s theory is too skeptical and nihilistic. Yet, this should not prevent

Keywords: Marxism, international law, imperialism, reform, social class

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 97-119.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.97

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Number of downloads: 140

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The Constitutive and Conventional Nature of Legal Interpretation Directives

Prof. dr hab. Marek Smolak

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

English abstract: The article’s purpose is to demonstrate that the directives of legal interpretation are constitutive and conventional. The directives of legal interpretation are constitutive because they confer the status of legal interpretive practice on social practice. The directives of legal interpretation are conventional because they are arbitrary in the sense given to them by A. Marmor. The directives of legal interpretation constitute not only the legal interpretive practice, but also the values of this practice. Among these values, I include innovative thinking, reasoning by analogy, intellectual challenges. If constitutive conventions are responsive, i.e., if they respond to various human needs and values, then at the core of legal interpretive practice there are values that are momentous for those who participate in these practices. Two types of values are distinguished: values in a strong sense and in a weak sense. Values in the strong sense are values whose realization is acontextual, i.e., independent of any context of a given legal interpretive practice. I include certainty and uniformity of understanding of legal texts in this category of values. On the other hand, values in the weak sense are contextual values, i.e., ones that depend on the goals that legal interpretive practice is supposed to fulfil. Examples of contextual values are adaptability and stability of law. I considered that there is a special relationship between values in both the strong and weak senses and the directives of legal interpretation. Based on mutual expectations, members of a given community assume that a particular directive of legal interpretation best realizes an important value of legal interpretation. The correctness of the above relationship largely depends on previous legal interpretive practice.

Keywords: legal interpretation directives, constitutive rule, conventional rule, values in legal interpretive practice

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 80-96.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.80

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Number of downloads: 179

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Gustav Klimt’s Jurisprudence and the Problem of the Scale of Claims on the Law

Natalia Regina Skoczylas

University of Wrocław

Dr Mateusz Wojtanowski

University of Wrocław

Abstrakt w języku polskim: The subject of this article is Gustav Klimt’s Jurisprudenz, a work intended as part of a larger exhibition of paintings depicting specific fields of knowledge. In contrast to the prevailing interpretation of the work in question as an expression of the artist’s personal sense of having been wronged, the authors of this article propose an alternative perspective, suggesting that the image carries a valuable message for legal discourse. As they argue, the image in question makes it possible to identify a potential way of improving the practice of law by reducing claims on it. In terms of the axiological perspective of the considerations, the article is located within the liberal democratic tradition. The article has an interdisciplinary character as Jurisprudence is interpreted from the perspective of art history and legal philosophy.

Słowa kluczowe: Gustav Klimt, Jurisprudenz, art history, philosophy of law, claims to law, aesthetics of law

Język artykułu: polski

Opublikowano: Numer 2(43)/2025, s. 58-79.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.58

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Liczba ściągnięć: 152

Tekst jest dostępny na licencji Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa 4.0 Międzynarodowe.

Around Selected Themes in the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz. Part II

Prof. dr hab. Beata Polanowska-Sygulska

Jagiellonian University in Kraków

English abstract: Prima facie duties central to W.D. Ross’s concept of ethical conflict and principles of law, which are, in turn, central to R. Dworkin’s individualistic conception of law as interpretation, show similarities in the process of their application. A comparative analysis of prima facie duties and principles of law leads to the conclusion that there is a shared essence underlying the notion of normative conflict (collision of prima facie duties or legal principles in so-called “hard cases”). This essence consists in the assumed importance of the factual situation as a factor determining an ethical and legal choice from among conflicting duties or principles, and the importance of the decision-making subject in resolving the conflict. Factuality and the unique subject (whether the “plain man” or “Judge Hercules”) are the factors that condition the possibility of identifying the proper duty and nonabstract right. Simultaneously, these are the factors that establish normative conflicts as disputes not determinable by an abstractly assumed moral principle; they open normativity to new narratives, to development, and to evolution. They individualize the conflict through the individualized nature of facts and the decision-making subject. Thus, a comparative analysis may lead to the conclusion that the assumption of openness to collisions of principles and duties is an expression of liberal thought, as it is not a narrative that imposes or excludes. Any abstract approach to conflict resolution is inherently oppressive, as it disregards the importance of the decision-making subject and the complexity of factual situations. Individualism opens up the conflict rather than closing it. This is the nature of declarations of individual rights and freedoms – when conceptualized as legal principles, they inevitably expose rights and freedoms to conflict.

Keywords: Joseph Raz, perfectionist liberalism, personal autonomy, group rights as a category, political conception of human rights, Ronald Dworkin, ethical monism

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 42-57.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.42

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Number of downloads: 136

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