Correction. The translation preserves the distinction between the right to practise the profession and access to the public financing channel, which is decisive for the classification of the measure; terminology follows standard Polish constitutional and healthcare-law usage (NFZ, lex retro non agit, Sejm, Senate) with English glosses where necessary for a non-Polish readership.
Article 31 of the Act on the professions of physician and dentist provides for the issuance of a certificate stating that the physician "has not been punished by a medical court, no proceedings concerning professional liability or proceedings initiated by a district medical council that could result in suspension of the right to practise the profession, nor any restriction on performing specific medical activities, are pending against him".
The rejected amendments would have created a new regime, separate from professional and criminal liability: a temporary (2 years in the softened version, originally up to 8 years) or lifetime ban on settling a physician's services within the public system for falsifying records, prescriptions, or sick leave certificates, with renewed punishment in the event of recidivism.
Physicians who falsify medical records, prescriptions, or sick leave certificates do not, for now, risk a separate statutory exclusion from settlements with the National Health Fund (NFZ) — the Senate Health Committee rejected amendments (the so-called "lex Kacprzyk") that would have introduced a temporary or lifetime ban on working in the public system. The dispute concerns not criminal liability for forgery, but a separate administrative sanctioning of a physician's access to services financed from public funds. The author of the amendments, Janusz Cieszyński, ultimately softened the draft himself: instead of a penalty of up to 8 years and lifetime exclusion in the event of recidivism, he proposed exclusion for 2 years, with renewed liability in the event of a repeated fraud. The legal issue will be resolved in the course of legislation — within the amendment to the Act of 27 August 2004 on healthcare services financed from public funds. The professional framework is set by the Act of 5 December 1996 on the professions of physician and dentist (consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2026, item 37): Article 2(1) defines the practice of the medical profession as the provision of healthcare services, and Article 4 imposes the obligation to practise in accordance with the principles of professional ethics and with due diligence.
The current state of the law is as follows:
The bill returns to the Sejm, which adopted the amendments and will assess the Senate's position. Realistic scenarios:
Correction. The article suggests that "if judgments are issued and published, the challenged provisions will begin to disappear from the legal system" — this thesis is essentially accurate but incomplete, and may be misleading as to the mechanism. First, publication does not cause the immediate loss of binding force of a provision: in accordance with the Tribunal's practice (cf. the judgment of 7 November 2013, K 31/12), a provision loses its force only upon the expiry of the time limit specified in the operative part (e.g., 18 months from the date of pronouncement of the judgment), and in the interim the provision remains in force. Second, the article omits the procedural condition set out in Article 19 of the Implementing Provisions: publication requires an order issued by the judge acting as President of the Tribunal, which — in the current situation of conflict surrounding the office of President of the Tribunal — is a significant link upon which publication in fact depends. More precisely, it should have been stated: "judgments, once an order of publication has been issued by the judge acting as President, are subject to publication, and the challenged provisions will lose their force within the time limits specified in the operative parts, calculated from the date of pronouncement."
Pursuant to Art. 18 of the Introductory Act, the judge to whom the President of the Republic has entrusted the performance of the duties of President directs the work of the Tribunal, represents it externally and assigns cases to judges "who have taken the oath before the President of the Republic of Poland".
In its judgment of 24 October 2017, Case K 1/17, the Tribunal found Art. 18(2) and Art. 21(2) of the Introductory Act consistent with the Constitution insofar as they concern judges who were elected by the Sejm and took the oath before the President.
The dispute over the Constitutional Tribunal has entered a phase in which the possibility of adjudication is determined not by the bench's composition in the constitutional sense, but by the question of who performs the duties of Tribunal President and whose oath is recognised as effective. After the suspension of President Święczkowski on 30 October 2026, work was resumed by eight judges elected by the current term of the Sejm, and the government hopes for the clearing of the backlog of pending cases. The legal issue is therefore the lawfulness of this bench and the effectiveness of the rulings it will issue — and it will rule on the basis of the Act of 30 November 2016 on the Status of Judges of the Constitutional Tribunal (Art. 2: The Tribunal shall consist of fifteen judges elected by the Sejm for a nine-year term) and the Act of 30 November 2016 on the Organisation and Proceedings before the Constitutional Tribunal. Also key are the provisions of the Introductory Act of 13 December 2016, in particular Art. 18 and Art. 19, which govern the powers of the judge performing the duties of President and the regime for the publication of judgments.
Pursuant to Art. This oath requirement is the axis of the dispute: supporters of the Tribunal's previous leadership challenge the status of the newly elected judges, while the government relies on the elections held by the Sejm of the current term. Art. 19 of that Act, as amended by the Act of 12 April 2018, provides that resolutions adopted in breach of the provisions of the Act on the Constitutional Tribunal are subject to a special publication regime — judgments are published upon an order of the judge performing the duties of President, unless they concern acts that have lost their force. 18(2) and Art. 21(2) of the Introductory Act consistent with the Constitution insofar as they concern judges who were elected by the Sejm and took the oath before the President, and also found Art. 19 consistent with Art. 10, Art. 173 and Art. 190(2) of the Constitution. In its order of 15 June 2021, Case P 7/20, the Tribunal recalled that its judgments are universally binding and final (Art. 190(1) of the Constitution), but produce effects solely in the normative sphere — the Tribunal is a court of law, not a court of fact. Under the Rules of Procedure of the Tribunal (resolution of the General Assembly of 27 July 2017, § 10), the President directs the work of the Tribunal, approves the report on budget implementation and informs the General Assembly of important matters — hence the suspension of the President effectively unblocked the work of the body, including the adoption of the budget.
If the eight-member bench continues its hearings, the nearest practical consequence will be judgments removing contested provisions from the legal system — upon their publication in the official journals they disappear from circulation, which directly affects citizens awaiting the examination of constitutional complaints and businesses applying uncertain norms. The legal risk remains the challenge of these resolutions as adopted in breach of the Act on the Constitutional Tribunal, which under Art. 19 of the Introductory Act may lead to disputes over the obligation to publish them. For the President and the government, the field of negotiation is the one-on-one talks announced by Prime Minister Tusk — their outcome is to be "a solution acceptable to all". Procedurally, further rulings of the resumed bench and decisions on their publication by the judge performing the duties of President are to be expected.
Approval of a concentration may be granted by the authority by way of a decision only where competition is not significantly restricted, in particular through the creation or strengthening of a dominant position (Article 18 of the ACCP Act).
JD.com and CECONOMY obtained the European Commission's approval for the acquisition of the company valued at approximately EUR 2.2 billion, but not under the classical merger control regime — the proceedings were initiated on the grounds of foreign subsidies that could distort competition in the EU. This means that the transaction will enter into force only once the binding commitments of both companies are fulfilled, and failure to comply may entail challenging the effects of an already completed concentration. For the 50,000 employees and more than 1,000 stores, the legal situation is such that CECONOMY's management board will retain responsibility for strategy and operational activities, while ownership control will pass to the Chinese investor. The specific legal regime governing this transaction is determined by: Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings and Regulation No 2022/2560 concerning foreign subsidies distorting competition — the latter is directly referenced in Article 105i of the Act on Competition and Consumer Protection. This principle is confirmed by the German regulator, which granted its approval in September 2025.
The procedural model applied by the Commission corresponds to the logic of merger control known from Polish law: the authority raises objections to undertakings where there is a justified probability of significant restriction of competition, and the undertaking may respond to them and commit to fulfilling conditions (Articles 3–6 of the reasoning and conditions in the 2014 amendment, corresponding to Article 19(2) of the ACCP Act). Here, the undertakings themselves proposed the conditions — intra-group transactions on arm's-length terms, market-based financing of CECONOMY by JD.com, and the provision of warehousing, logistics and technology services to other retailers on the same terms as to CECONOMY. The Commission found that these commitments would "fully and effectively remedy" the identified distortions, i.e. the risk of aggressive pricing financed by subsidies (preferential financing, tax incentives, grants from China). A conditional decision therefore means that the approval is effective provided that the commitments are fully implemented. Under the Polish legal order, the acquisition could require a separate notification to the President of the UOKiK if the turnover met the thresholds under Article 13(1) of the ACCP Act. However, no notification is required where the case is taken over by the European Commission under EU law — the discontinuation of proceedings on that ground is provided for in Article 75(3) of the ACCP Act. The sources contain no case law concerning this specific transaction, so no judicial precedent can be cited.
The most realistic scenario is the closing of the transaction and the integration of CECONOMY into the JD.com group, with the Commission simultaneously monitoring the implementation of the commitments. For competitors on the European electronics market, it is significant that JD.com's warehousing and logistics services must be offered to them on terms identical to those offered to CECONOMY — a breach of equal treatment may constitute grounds for intervention by the authority. For employees and stores, the practical significance lies in JD.com's binding commitment to protect the "fundamentals" and to leave strategy in the hands of the existing management board. In the event of non-compliance with the commitments, the Commission may seek their enforcement; if a significant restriction of competition were to occur, the competition authority of a Member State (in Poland, the President of the UOKiK) may examine the effects on its own market, and in the absence of notification of the intention to concentrate under Article 13, liability may attach to the managing person who intentionally permitted the concentration. Further course of the proceedings: the parties are expected to announce the closing of the transaction once the suspensive conditions of the agreement are fulfilled.
May a public social media post by a legal adviser (counsel) — "Drop dead!!!" under a photograph of the president of Wisła Kraków — constitute a breach of the professional ethics rules applicable to legal advisers within the meaning of the Code of Ethics of the Legal Adviser, even though it was published in a private capacity (a profile on X) rather than in the course of professional practice?
No direct source of the relevant provision has been provided, so I rely on the general principle of law: under the Act of 6 July 1982 on Legal Advisers (art. 64), a legal adviser is subject to disciplinary liability for conduct contrary to the principles of professional ethics and the dignity of the profession, and the Code of Ethics of the Legal Adviser requires that a legal adviser — including outside the practice of the profession — not undermine the dignity of the profession and observe the rules of proper conduct. The practical norm emerging from these provisions is as follows: a public statement by a legal adviser, even on a private profile, is subject to disciplinary assessment where its content (a vulgar, hostile formulation directed at a specific individual, published in the context of a fatal attack on a human being) may undermine the dignity of the profession.
The materials provided contain no case law on this specific issue, so no uniform line of authority can be identified; in practice, disciplinary spokesmen of bar associations and legal advisers' chambers consistently initiate proceedings against lawyers' abusive statements online, but the assessment of whether a post crosses the boundary of permissible criticism remains a matter for the disciplinary court.
The key point is to distinguish the stages: the "explanatory steps" conducted by the deputy disciplinary spokesman do not yet constitute disciplinary proceedings and do not determine the charge — it is impermissible to infer from this statement of the chamber that a charge will be brought, let alone that a penalty will be imposed. An argument that will become stronger should a charge in fact be brought concerns the context of the statement: publication on 23 August 2026, two days after the death of Jakub C. and amid an atmosphere of public outrage, may be characterised as a statement inflaming the conflict rather than permissible criticism of the club's position in the dispute over "equal rules of the game". The risk for the legal adviser lies in the fact that deleting the post does not erase the fact of publication (screenshots and media reports are available), and the refusal to comment to a journalist is irrelevant to the proceedings — what will matter is the explanatory statement before the chamber's forum; for the legal adviser's defence, the natural line will be to argue that the post was an emotional civic comment, unconnected with the practice of the profession — which, however, does not foreclose disciplinary liability for conduct affecting the dignity of the profession outside professional practice.
Only if the situation were recognised as a threat to the State's fuel security could the gas transmission system operator — under Article 51 of the Act on Stocks of Crude Oil, Petroleum Products and Natural Gas (consolidated text as announced by the Marshal of the Sejm on 22 April 2026) — order readiness to release mandatory natural gas stocks.
The Energy Law, in Art. 3 point 3a, includes within "gaseous fuels" only gases delivered by means of the gas grid — propane-butane in cylinders and tankers falls outside that concept, so the rules on grid-based trading do not protect drying facilities receiving gas by road tanker.
Farmers and operators of corn drying facilities cannot expect the State to deploy any support instruments on their behalf this season — the current propane shortage remains at the level of civil-law contracts and commercial decisions of suppliers. The legal intervention tools that exist under the Act on Stocks of Crude Oil, Petroleum Products and Natural Gas concern natural gas and mandatory stocks, not liquefied propane sold at retail by tanker. Today the propane market operates under freedom of contract: delivery contracts, their terms and prices are shaped by the parties, and logistical delays do not give rise to automatic statutory liability on the supplier's side. The key legal issue in this situation is the boundary between the buyer's commercial risk and the regulatory obligations of energy undertakings — resolved under the Energy Law (in particular the definition of gaseous fuels in Art. 3 point 3a, introduced by the Act of 4 March 2005, which covers propane-butane delivered via the gas grid) and the provisions on mandatory stocks.
The scope of the parties' obligations depends on whether gas is delivered via the grid or in liquefied form by tanker:
The most realistic scenario is completing the drying season in a purely market-based regime: suppliers' prices remain under pressure (reported rates of PLN 2.29 to PLN 3.20 net per litre, compared with approximately PLN 1.40 a year earlier), and the additional drying cost reaches approximately PLN 150 per tonne of corn. For farmers this means a choice between selling wet grain and bearing higher costs; for drying facilities, an incentive to build their own storage in accordance with the requirements of the 1999 Regulation. Regulatory intervention is possible only upon a formal finding of a fuel security threat, which in the case of propane outside the grid system does not follow directly from the sources.