Samorząd Terytorialny - Nr 12/2017

FROM THE EDITOR

In the fiftieth anniversary of the right to the city
p. 5

ARTICLES

Hubert Izdebski

• The right to the city – lawyer’s point of view

p. 6

Marek S. Szczepański

• The right to the city – sociological point of view

p. 19

Małgorzata Czornik

• Post-modernism as an inspiration for the development of Polish cities

p. 30

Ewelina Kancik-Kołtun

• Municipality – between party and non-party

p. 42

Małgorzata Godlewska

• Regulations of the public procurement system and support of (SMEs) by local government units

p. 52

Martyna Kopcińska

• Single-member constituencies and selected aspects of the functioning of the local political scene

p. 64

Mateusz Tomal

• Analysis of the socio-economic differentiation of the counties of the Malopolska Voivodship and the impact of continuity of the function of the chief district officer on the pace of local development

p. 79

CASE LAW

Maciej P. Gapski

• Ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court of 14 February 2012 (I OSK 1709/11); critical commentary (Legal definition of the term „family” from the Act of Family Benefi ts)

p. 90

Table of Contents & Abstracts
p. 95

Hubert Izdebski
The right to the city – lawyer’s point of view
This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the formulation of the right to the city. It was formulated by the French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991) in his essay „Droit à la ville” – which was completed on the centenary of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital, to which, after all, it also referred. The article was published just before the outbreak of the student revolt of 1968 in the USA and in Western Europe, announcing the inclusive and participatory direction of its – broader – postulates. These postulates were gradually, albeit with varying intensity and in different ways, implemented over the last half century. The implementation also applies to the right to the city postulated by Lefebvre. Intellectual and socio-political expressions of the right to the city are leftist to a significant extent and often even ultra-leftist, but the right to the city currently operates in various ideological contexts, including constituting a starting point for the emerging autonomous ideology of urban movements. It is appearing increasingly frequently in legal documents, similarly starting to take on the characteristics of not only the socio-political postulate, but also the fundamental rights, human and civil rights.

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Marek S. Szczepański
The right to the city – sociological point of view
The paper is a sociological complement to Hubert Izdebski’s paper in the same edition of Territorial Self-Government. In that paper, the author discusses matters regarding the legal aspects of the right to the city. In other words – he considers the „harder” right to a city. Meanwhile, this text was conceived as an attempt to present the „soft”, or socio-cultural right to the city, which primarily analyses the right of residents to urban space and its various components, such as, for instance public, semi-public, semi-private, intimate and fi nally scatological space. This paper is largely of the nature of a sociological essay and to a lesser extent a rigorous scientifi c thesis. The expression „right to the city” was introduced into the literature in 1968 by Henri Lefebvre. This scientifi c event coincided with the start of the birth of counter-cultural movements, the extreme ideology of which contested all rights related to social reality of the time. Therefore, a postulate appeared to put order to social space, namely the city. Human rights (fundamental rights) constitute the foundation of the constitution of the right to the city, taking into account not just the individual but extending it to encompass a group or social groups.

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Małgorzata Czornik
Post-modernism as an inspiration for the development of Polish cities
The article contains a proprietary proposal of an analysis of the impact of post-modernism postulates on the development of Polish cities. Its objective is to present their usefulness in the realities of these cities which have to find their place and survive in the modern world. The ambition of their authorities and citizens is to participate in civilization processes not only by importing products or behavioural patterns but also by contributing to the transformations taking place as a result of their own offering. The condition for active participation is funding, spatial investment opportunities and the existence of communities of inhabitants, but primarily awareness of the need to make changes that can transform the city into post-modern settlements. There is no clear answer to the question of whether it is worth doing so. The justification of the activities is the need to satisfy the needs and wishes of users of cities, as a precondition for their presence in the city. The article uses the results of surveys conducted in selected county cities of the Silesian Voivodship.

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Ewelina Kancik-Kołtun
Municipality – between party and non-party
This article is an attempt to answer the question to which extent municipal politics is the area of party politicians who represent specific political parties and to which non-party candidates of local electoral committies. The topic of research covers the results of local governments elections in 2014 in Poland and their analysis. The criterion of city choice was based on demographics size. The author claims that party commitment of local governments is the cause of different disfunctions like: political clientelism, centralism enforcement, local governments indebtedness and weakening of representative democracy.

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Małgorzata Godlewska
Regulations of the public procurement system and support of (SMEs) by local government units
The article presents the most important regulations of the public procurement system, which constitute a barrier to the growth of the position of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the public procurement market using the example of public procurement and concessions for public works and public-private partnership infrastructure projects. The barriers to the development of SMEs were also classified in the context of the tasks set for the local government units in the support of the development of entrepreneurship through the creation of favourable conditions for taking up and pursuing business activity.

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Martyna Kopcińska
Single-member constituencies and selected aspects of the functioning of the local political scene
The article refers to the change in the electoral system for the municipal councils in Poland, which took place with the enactment of the Electoral Code on 5 January 2011. The authoress analyses the impact of the electoral law on the phenomenon of disproportionality of elections measured by the Gallagher index and the percentage of “wasted votes”. It also identifies the phenomena jointly appearing, including the paradox of territorially consolidated support. Furthermore, the article refers to the changes in the structure and functioning of selected municipal councils. The authoress identifies the types of municipal councils on the basis of the criterion of affiliation of the majority of councillors in the municipal council similarly checking the impact of the electoral system on the shape of the individual solutions.

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Mateusz Tomal
Analysis of the socio-economic differentiation of the counties of the Malopolska Voivodship and the impact of continuity of the function of the chief district offi cer on the pace of local development
The objective of this article is to conduct a comparative analysis of the socio-economic development of the counties of the Małopolska Voivodship in 2006 and 2014. A summary measure of development based on several tens of diagnostic features was used to examine this phenomenon. In addition, an attempt was made to verify the impact of continuity of the function of the chief district offi cer on the pace of local development. The analysis showed that there is significant positive linear correlation between these variables.

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Maciej P. Gapski
Ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court of 14 February 2012 (I OSK 1709/11); critical commentary (Legal defi nition of the term „family” from the Act of Family Benefi ts)
The commented judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court refers to the problem of interpretation of the legal defi nition of the term „family” from article 3 point 16 of the Act of Family Benefi ts. In the judgment, the Court stated that the defi nition does not contain a rigid rule that allows individuals to be identifi ed as family members in a specifi c life situation. The Court’s position cannot be agreed because it results from the misinterpretation of this defi nition. The Court of Second Instance misinterpreted the term „respectively” contained in this defi nition, giving it the meaning established for the respectively application of the law. The term „respectively” contained in this defi nition is not, however, of a referring nature and precludes the establishment of a family composition by the authorities.

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