Gmina/en

MUNICIPALITY – a unit of local government, a basic unit of → territorial division in Poland and also a local governmental community which is an entity of local government. Certain consequences result from this statement. Most of all, mun., in accordance with the → principle of subsidiarity, have been equipped with most of the competences in decentralised structure of local government. In case of doubt about who is responsible for the specific task at the local level, the presumption of competence for the mun. is assumed, since its scope includes all public affairs of local importance, not reserved by law to other entities. There are three types of mun.: 1. urban, whose whole territory is a city, 2. urban-rural, consisting of a town and several villages, 3. rural, consisting of towns or villages without city status. As on 1st January 2017, Poland is divided into 2478 mun., including: 1555 rural, 621 urban-rural and 302 urban, 66 of which are cities with county rights. The decision-making and control body is – depending on the type of the mun. – municipal council or town/city council. The executive body is, depending on the type of mun.: 1. village mayor in a rural mun., 2. mayor in a mun. whose seat is located in a town located on the territory of that mun., 3. city president in cities with over 100 thousand residents. Creating, combining, dividing, cancelling, determining the borders and names of the mun. and location of their authorities, takes form of an ordinance of the Council of Ministers after consultation with the inhabitants of the towns and villages concerned. When making these decisions one should aim for the mun. to include the territory as homogeneous as possible in terms of settlement and spatial arrangement as well as social and economic ties, ensuring the ability to perform public tasks. In the mun. – as the only unit of territorial division – it is possible to create auxiliary units: parishes, districts, housing estates. The legislator left the municipal council a free hand to form auxiliary divisions (→ local government, supervision over local government,local community, models of municipalities) [ K.A. Kuć-Czajkowska ].

Literature: M. Barański, S. Kantyka, S. Kubas, M. Kuś, Samorząd terytorialny i wspólnoty lokalne, Warszawa 2007 ■ B. Dolnicki, Samorząd terytorialny, Kraków 2016 ■ W. Zając, Zasadniczy trójstopniowy podział terytorialny Polski. Komentarz do przepisów, Warszawa 1999.