In this article we take a look at how provisions of the Act of 13 October 1995, Hunting Law (henceforth “Hunting Law”) may affect the legal standing of a property and the uses that its owner (or perpetual usufruct holder) can make of it.

I.  Hunting district

Under Hunting Law, a hunting district is a continuous land area at least 3,000 hectares in size on which conditions exist for the conduct of hunting. In special cases, though, where justified by considerations of rational hunting economy and by terrain conditions, and subject to the consent of the competent minister in charge of the environment, hunting districts smaller than 3,000 hectares may be established.

Depending on the type of land, hunting districts are divided into two categories: forest and non-forest. A forest hunting district is a hunting district where at least 40% of the total area is covered by forest. A non-forest hunting district is a hunting district where less than 40% of the total area is covered by forest.

The Hunting Law lists several types of land that cannot be included in a hunting district. These are e.g. national parks and nature reserves (with some exceptions); areas that are within the limits of a city (again with exceptions); and properties containing buildings, plants, or facilities used for social, religious, industrial, trading, storage, transport, or other economic purposes, as well as structures of a historic or special nature.

In each voivodship, the division into hunting districts, and the assignment of each hunting district to a quality class (from “very good” to “very poor”), as well as any changes to the boundaries or the quality-class assignment of hunting districts, are laid down in a resolution passed by the voivodship assembly (sejmik). The resolution is drafted by the voivodship marshal (the head of the voivodship government), following consultation with a specially-appointed advisory committee that includes: representatives of the voivodship government; representatives of regional directorates of State Forests; representatives of local branches of the Polish Hunting Association (PZL); and representatives of the agricultural chamber.

II. Rights of the property owner

The owners (or perpetual usufruct holders) of all properties that, under a draft resolution on hunting districts prepared by the marshal, are included in a hunting district, are entitled to submit comments to the resolution’s draft text as part of a mandatory public consultation. They may request that their property be excluded from the district. In such cases, the marshal has to consider whether the specific nature of the property, or of the activity being conducted on it, may make it difficult to pursue hunting on it, as well as whether the activity being conducted on the property would be significantly restricted or rendered impossible as a result of its inclusion in a hunting district. The final draft resolution submitted by the marshal to the assembly includes, as an enclosure, a list of all comments that were rejected during the consultation. The assembly may still decide to accept them, in which case the process is repeated to the extent necessary.

If the inclusion of a property in a hunting district significantly restricts its previous use (or the use of its part), or makes it impossible, the owner (or perpetual usufruct holder) is entitled to compensation. It should be remembered, however, that the claim for such compensation has to be made within three years of the resolution coming into effect.

Importantly, too, the owner (or perpetual usufruct holder) of a property included in a hunting district, as long as they are a natural person, are entitled to prohibit hunting on their property. A written statement to this effect has to be made in front of the county governor, or starosta, who certifies the authenticity of the owner’s signature. It is a personal right that expires only when the owner dies. PZL has no power to object to, nor any other way of challenging, such a statement. But the owner is free to revoke it at any time.

Hunting districts are in most cases operated by local branches of PZL under lease agreements concluded with starostas or regional directors of State Forests. The lease agreement is concluded for a definite term of at least 10 years. There are circumstances in which the agreement is automatically terminated, notably when the local branch of PZL is dissolved. The lessor is entitled to terminate the agreement without notice in two cases: 1) following consultation with PZL or upon its request, or upon the request of the agricultural chamber, in the event of unjustified failure by the lessee to fulfill at least 80% of the annual hunting plan (in terms of the number of big game animals to be acquired) during three consecutive hunting years; or 2) upon the request of PZL, in the event of a negative assessment by PZL of the lessee’s performance following a PZL audit.

To recapitulate, hunters in Poland, associated in local PZL branches and supported by PZL, engage in their activities in a regulated manner within the boundaries of clearly delineated hunting districts. The owners (and perpetual usufruct holders) of properties that lie within hunting districts have legal tools at their disposal, both to challenge their property’s inclusion in a hunting district (comments to the draft resolution of the voivodship assembly) and, should this fail, to prohibit hunting on their property.   

By Jan Akimenkow, trainee attorney at law
Originally published in PMR Construction Insight: Poland, No. 3 (276), March 2024

What is citizenship?

This concept was not, and is not, defined in the Polish legal system, as in the legal systems of other countries. Characterizing its legal essence, several features are indicated:

1. citizenship is a legal bond established by the internal law of a state linking a natural person to that state;
2. this legal bond is relatively permanent in space and time;
3. the bond of citizenship is formal – a given person belongs to a specific state, thus being a part of the human community forming the personal substrate of this state;
4. the formal legal bond of citizenship, as a relationship between a natural person and the state, forms the basis for the implementation of the mutual rights and obligations of the state and that person established by law.[1]

In addition, citizenship is the basic criterion for distinguishing „countryperson“ from a foreigner, which is confirmed by the regulations adopted in many countries: usually a foreigner is defined as a person who is not a citizen of a given state.[2]

What does Polish citizenship give?

The Polish citizenship is now of great practical value. The status of a Polish citizen gives a lot of possibilities to organize one’s life in Poland, including:

• free settlement in Poland at any time,
• taking up employment, including in professions available only to Polish citizens,
• unrestricted acquisition of real estate located in Poland,
• freedom of undertaking and performing economic activity in Poland,
• unlimited access to education in public institutions, such as higher education institutions, art schools, teacher training institutions,
• the right to pursue higher education and doctoral studies, as well as to participate in scientific research and development work without hindrance,
• admission to flight training and obtaining aviation licenses in the Republic of Poland,
• travel without a visa to over 180 countries.

Furthermore, it should be remembered that every citizen of Poland is at the same time a citizen of the EU which carries additional benefits. EU citizen is entitled:

• to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States of the European Union,
• to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament and in municipal elections in the Member State of residence under the same conditions as citizens of that state,
• to enjoy, in the territory of a third country in which Poland is not represented, the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any Member State of the Union under the same conditions as the citizens of that State,
• to address petitions to the European Parliament, to apply to the European Ombudsman, and to apply to the institutions and advisory bodies of the Union.

What does the continuity of Polish citizenship mean?

Since 15 August 2012, the Act of 2 April 2009 on Polish Citizenship[3] has been in force. Under the principle of continuity of Polish citizenship laid down in the 2009 Act, Polish citizenship was granted to persons who were Polish citizens under the previous laws on citizenship. This solution is not new in the Polish legal tradition. The continuity of Polish citizenship was established for the first time in the Polish Citizenship Act of 8 January 1951, stating that “on the day of the coming into force of this Act, persons who have Polish citizenship on the basis of the hitherto regulations are Polish citizen”.[4] The above rule was confirmed by the Polish Citizenship Act of 15 February 1962.[5]

The principle of continuity of citizenship means that the circle of Polish citizens remained, in principle, as on the date of entry into force of a specific citizenship act, unless it was modified by such an act (in fact, it happened several times).

Considering that the first population of Polish citizens consisted of individuals who had acquired Polish citizenship after 1918 (the first generation of citizens), it should be assumed that the 1951 provision establishing the principle of continuity of Polish citizenship referred mainly to the first generation of citizens and their descendants. The second generation of Polish citizens came into being first and foremost as a result of the ius sanguinis principle (the law of blood) – the basic principle of acquiring Polish citizenship under Polish law. This principle was formulated in Art. 4 (1) and Art. 5 of the Polish Citizenship Act of 20 January 1920 which stated that “Polish citizenship is acquired by birth, […] by birth legitimate children acquire their father’s citizenship, and illegitimate children acquire their mother’s citizenship”[6]. The Polish March Constitution of 1921 treated the principle of ius sanguinis as the basic standard of acquiring Polish citizenship, stipulating that “Polish citizenship is acquired […] by birth from parents who have Polish citizenship”.[7]

Like the 1920 Act, both the 1951 Act and the 1962 Act stood on the basis of ius sanguinis. The Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997 upheld the constitutional status of the Law of Blood,[8] and the Act of 2009 confirmed the previous solutions. The 1951 Act (art. 6) stipulated that “A child acquires Polish citizenship if: 1) both parents are Polish citizens, or 2) one of the parents is a Polish citizen and the other is unknown, or his or her citizenship is unknown or undetermined.” Article 4 of the 1962 Act stated that “A child acquires Polish citizenship by birth if: 1) both parents are Polish citizens or 2) one of the parents is a Polish citizen and the other is unknown or her/his citizenship is undetermined or (s)he has no citizenship.” The 1997 Constitution states in Article 34 that “Polish citizenship is acquired by birth from parents who are Polish citizens,” while under Article 14 of the 2009 Act “A minor acquires Polish citizenship by birth if: 1) at least one parent is a Polish citizen. […]” According to section 16 of the 2012 Act, this rule also applies (under certain conditions) to adopted persons.

Confirmation of Polish citizenship

Those interested may consider their ancestors Polish citizens after tracing their family history, collecting and analyzing documents indicating this. The legal and, at the same time, material confirmation of Polish citizenship may be obtained by the interested person by completing the process of confirmation of Polish citizenship. The 2009 Act gives everyone who can prove their legal interest the possibility of obtaining such a confirmation. The relevant decision is issued by the voivode at the request of the interested party. In most cases, it will be the voivode of the voivodeship the applicant’s last place of residence was in, and if the interested party has never lived in Poland – the voivode of Mazovian Voivodeship. Individuals living outside Poland may (but do not have to) submit their application through a Polish consulate.

For those interested in obtaining confirmation of Polish citizenship, it is important to realize that the said continuity of citizenship is in a sense a legal declaration – Polish citizenship lasts unless it was lost as a result of (1) individual actions of a citizen to which the law binds loss of Polish citizenship by an individual or (2) as a result of ex lege deprivation of Polish citizenship the whole groups of citizens, regardless of their personal will and initiative.

The 2009 Act does not contain provisions allowing for revocation of Polish citizenship (revocation of Polish citizenship is prohibited by the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997). It only gives the possibility to renounce that citizenship with the consent of the President of the Republic of Poland. Furthermore, the 2009 Act departs from the previous standard and stipulates that “a Polish citizen who is at the same time a citizen of another state has the same rights and obligations towards the Republic of Poland as a person who is only a Polish citizen” thus allowing dual citizenship. Those who wish to obtain Polish citizenship are no longer legally required to revoke their previous citizenships.

*****

The complicated history of Poland, which includes enormous movements of its citizens before and after World War II, both voluntary and involuntary, results in at least several million people living outside Polish borders without confirmation of their Polish citizenship status. However, it should be noted, that the legal situation is different for persons (descendants of these persons) who emigrated from the territories that became part of the Polish State after 1918, descendants of Polish Jews who left Poland for Palestine before World War II or just after 1948, during the so-called Gomółka alia in the years 1955-1961, or after the March events in 1968, as well as people of German origin and autochthons who were subject to nationality verification after 1945. The situation of Polish citizens who found themselves within the borders of the USSR after 1939 and remained there, as well as those who were displaced from Poland to the USSR in the years 1945-1946, is particularly complicated.

Andrzej Kiedrzyn, PhD 
Attorney at law
T: +48 22 447 43 00
E: kiedrzyn@millercanfield.com

[1] See: J. Jagielski. Obywatelstwo polskie. Komentarz do ustawy, Wolters Kluwer, Warszawa 2016, pp. 18-19.

[2] Ibidem, p 35.

[3] Journal of Laws item 161.

[4] Journal of Laws No. 4, item 25, art. 2 item 1).

[5]Act of February 15th, 1962 on Polish Citizenship, Dz.U. Nr 10, poz. 49 with later amendments, art. 1.

[6] Journal of Laws No. 7, item 44.

[7] Act of March 17, 1921 – Constitution of the Republic of Poland, Dz.U. No. 44, item 267, Art. 88 letter a).

[8] Journal of Laws No. 78, item 483, art. 34.

To function properly, any modern building requires electricity. In Poland, electricity is still derived mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, particularly coal, which affects its price. Although the country’s electricity market was liberalised in 2007, prices for consumers, i.e. household users, were not: they are determined on the basis of so-called tariffs. In this article we explore what electricity tariffs are. We also take a look at what rights consumers have vis a vis electricity companies.

I.  Electricity tariff: What is it? How is it created? Is it a model agreement?

Electricity tariffs have their legal basis in the Energy Law.[1] Among the stated objectives of the Energy Law are: counteracting the negative effects of natural monopolies; taking proper account of environmental protection requirements and multilateral agreement obligations; or balancing the interests of energy companies and those of users of energy and fuels. Achieving this latter objective, in particular, requires the introduction of model agreements and tariffs that are vetted by an independent regulator with appropriate powers.

According to the Energy Law, a tariff is a list of prices and charges, and associated terms and conditions, that an energy company charges users. With respect to electricity, the tariff determination process is as follows. A licensed electricity company – the supply of electricity requires a license – designs tariffs and submits them for approval by the President of the Energy Regulatory Office (URE). The URE President examines whether the tariffs are consistent with all the legal requirements and reflect justified costs only, and decides to approve or reject them. The submitted draft tariff proposes prices for user groups for a given period, in most cases a year. (The URE President can approve a tariff for a longer period – up to three years – upon the request of the electricity company, provided that the prices and charges in it are not higher than in the previous tariff, and subject to certain other conditions.) Tariff proposals must be submitted no later than two months prior to the expiry of the current tariff. The URE President has the power to demand the submission of tariff proposals for approval. So it is not possible to supply and charge households for electricity without a binding tariff. Approved tariffs are published in the Bulletin of the URE President.

Thus, an energy tariff is a document that, on the one hand, is an electricity price list; but on the other hand, it also contains wider provisions that become binding for all of the company’s users once the tariff is approved by the regulator. These other provisions include, notably, division into user groups, or conditions under which specific prices apply. The prices themselves are not determined unilaterally and arbitrarily by electricity companies, but must take account if ministerial guidelines. Under the Energy Law, the competent minister in charge of energy affairs[2], after consulting the URE President, lays down, in the form of a regulation, detailed rules for the determination and calculation of electricity tariffs and for financial settlement in the trade in electricity, taking into account the following: the state’s energy policy; the need to cover electricity companies’ justified costs, including the costs of their development; protection of users from unjustified price and charge increases; improving the efficiency of supply and use of electricity; equitable treatment of users; elimination of cross-subsidisation[3]; and transparency of prices and charges[4].

II. The electricity consumer and their rights

The consumer enters into an agreement with an electricity company that defines the price at which the electricity is acquired based on the tariff approved by the regulator. Such an arrangement is based on the assumption that full liberalisation of electricity prices would be harmful to consumers, whose interest has to be protected by the state. So part of the URE President’s task is to reconcile diverging interests.

Although the Energy Law uses the term consumer, legal practice has established that it means household user. The consumer is free to choose the electricity supplier. They can enter into one of three types of agreement: electricity sale agreement, electricity supply/distribution agreement, or comprehensive electricity sale and supply/distribution agreement. Each consumer is assigned to a tariff group. A tariff group is a group of users who are charged the same prices and terms for the sale or supply/distribution or comprehensive sale and supply/distribution of electricity.

Consumers are assigned to tariff groups according to the amount of justified costs required to supply electricity to them, based on the following criteria: grid voltage at the point of supply; ordered capacity; method of financial settlement; number of settlement time zones; and electricity consumption. The consumer is entitled to apply to switch tariff groups once in 12 months, and in the case of a change in prices, within 60 days of the new tariff coming into effect. Importantly, the terms and conditions of switching tariff groups are laid down in the electricity sale agreement/electricity supply/distribution agreement/comprehensive agreement.

The Energy Law also regulates the complaints process, and envisages a catalogue of consumer rights[5]. Thus, the electricity company is obliged to: receive reports and complaints from users about electricity supply on a 24/7 basis; immediately remove any disruptions in the supply of electricity caused by grid failures; inform users, upon request, of the expected time of supply restoration after a grid failure; give users at least five days’ notice of planned outages and their duration; or inform users free of charge about methods of financial settlement and current tariffs.

To recapitulate, the price that the consumer pays for electricity is calculated based on a tariff, i.e. a model agreement used by the electricity company that was approved by the URE President. The consumer is entitled to a number of rights, including e.g. to request a change of price. However, the criteria for assigning consumers to tariff groups (with their prices and conditions) are also subject to prior regulatory approval.

By Jan Akimenkow, trainee attorney at law

Originally published in PMR Construction Insight: Poland, No. 2 (275), February 2024

[1] Cf. The Energy law act of 10 April 1997.

[2] Currently, the Minister of Climate and the Environment.

[3] Charging a group of users higher prices to fund reduced prices for another group.

[4] Cf. Regulation of the Minister of Climate and the Environment of 29 November 2022 on the determination and calculation of electricity tariffs and on financial settlement in the trade in electricity.

[5] Cf. Regulation of the Minister of Climate and the Environment of 22 March 2023 on detailed conditions of the functioning of the electrical power system.