Encyklopedia Administracji Publicznej MW Pivot Skin

ADMINISTRATIVE JUDICIARY – from the subjective perspective, it includes the → Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) and administrative courts (currently, 16 voivodship administrative courts), which perform the administration of justice in the Republic of Poland as special/separate courts (next to the Supreme Court, common courts and military courts). From the subject matter perspective, this is a kind of control of activity (or inaction) of public administration performed by the state bodies independent of the public administration (external control of the administration). Administrative judiciary is one of the basic guarantees of the democratic rule of law and consists principally in judging the legality of administrative acts. The basic aim of judicial-administrative control is to protect the rights of citizens by ensuring the legitimate activity of the administration towards the citizens (protection of subjective rights) and the protection of the objective legal order of the Republic of Poland. Administrative control conducted by the administrative courts also includes deciding on compliance with the statutes of local government’s resolutions and normative acts of government administration’s territorial bodies, resolving competence disputes between local-government and government administration, and verifying supervisory decisions on local government bodies. Administrative control by administrative courts operates on the basis of a complaint (complaint to vac and cassation appeal to the SAC), it cannot be initiated ex officio. Unlike common courts, the decisions of administrative court take form of a cassation. This means that the court may eliminate (cancel) from the legal order the illegal form of public administration’s action, but it cannot settle the administrative case as a substitute for a public administration body – so there is no possibility of issuing a legally valid act in place of the illegal one. The current two-instance model of administrative judiciary has been functioning since 1st January 2004[ A. Mirska ].

Literature: J. Jagielski, Kontrola administracji publicznej [Control of public administration], Warszawa 2012 ■ Polskie sądownictwo administracyjne – zarys systemu [Polish administrative judiciary – an outline of the system], ed. Z. Kmieciak, Warszawa 2017.