Przedawnienie kar pieniężnych za naruszenie warunków korzystania ze środowiska lub zasad prowadzenia działalności w zakresie jego ochrony

The basis of environmental protection is the principle of “the polluter pays,” which is anchored in the provisions of Article 7 of the Act of April 27, 2001 Environmental Protection Law. However, the rule is not unlimited in nature. This is because its enforcement in practice must be carried out in compliance with rules that guarantee the entities using the environment the opportunity to defend their rights and present their arguments. At the same time, this must take place in a manner that guarantees the security of legal transactions. Therefore, by the Act of April 7, 2017 amending the Act – the Code of Administrative Procedure and certain other acts, Article 189g of the Code of Administrative Procedure was introduced, defining the general principles of the statute of limitations for fines. Unfortunately, the necessity to adjust to them the statute of limitations rules for fines arising from the legal acts under which fines are imposed was forgotten. As a result of this, there is a whole series of solutions in special laws that set out fully or partially autonomous rules for the statute of limitations on fines. This problem is with particular intensity in the field of environmental protection. Therefore, the study presents the basis for the statute of limitations of the various types of fines imposed for violations of the conditions for using the environment or conducting activities related to environmental protection, and the resulting problems. Therefore, de lege ferenda, it was proposed to take measures to unify the legal basis for the statute of limitations of the type of fines in question. This could be done by eliminating from the legal acts constituting the basis for imposing fines the reference to the application of the relevant provisions of the Tax Ordinance. Since the introduction of solutions dedicated to the imposition of fines into the Code of Administrative Procedure, it has become redundant