35^th Session of the Congress, 6-8 November 2018, Strasbourg

Presentation by Andrzej Porawski, executive director

Association of Polish Cities

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Mayors under pressure -

Strasbourg, France, 6 November 2018

 MAYORS UNDER PRESSURE - POLAND

LEGAL PRESSURE - SALARIES

- general problem - Polish regulations incompatible with art. 6 of The Charter

numerous acts of parliament and implementing decrees impose rigid organizational solutions on municipalities and counties;

Self-government employees act, instead of specifying rules of remuneration, contains a reference to a central government regulation which imposes a remuneration scale on local self-government units. This year change of this regulation was implemented against the Charter and Polis law;

SPECIAL POLITICAL ACTION - Warsaw

 after almost 30 years after political changes there is still unsolved problem to regulate legally the process of re-privatisation;

 the legal act prepared by the Government of Jerzy Buzek, voted by the Parliament in 2001, was vetoed by president Kwasniewski;

 March 2017 - special legislation gave to the political "verification committee" the right to anulate administrative decisions, even based on judgment of the court; only in Warsaw;

 the chairman of the committee announced the candidate for Warsaw Mayor's post;

INTERPRETATIONS OF AMBIGUOUS LEGAL REGULATIONS

sitting in board of directors in state and/or municipal companies (Lublin - state; Radom - municipal);

 convicted of public accusation (Lodz versus Rabka):

- Self-government employees act (lex generalis)

- Electoral code (lex specialis)

LOCAL / REGIONAL ELECTIONS 2018

 fair - from legal (procedural) point of view;

 very strong involvement of central government in campaign;

central government officials using pseudo-legal arguments against some candidates from opposition;

results: much stronger presence of PiS in regions and counties; poor presence of PiS in municipalities, especially cities (majority of mayors - independent).