Statutory Regulation on Financial Management in the Self-Government of Attorneys-at-Law in Poland

The self-government of attorneys-at-law is a self-government associating persons exercising a profession of public trust. The Constitution of the Republic of Poland provides for the permissibility of the establishment of such self-governments and at the same time assigns functions to them. These functions are performed by means of tasks defined by law, including those of a public nature, in the performance of which the self-government of attorneys-at-law is independent. The essence of any normatively defined self-government is independence, including financial independence. The legal regulations on the financial management of attorneys-at-law are not extensive, but at the same time they are diverse. These regulations refer to several levels of financial management of such a self-government and concern: the basic sources of financing their activities, the competence of the self-government bodies to adopt internally binding normative acts, the adoption of budgets of the self-government of attorneys-at-law and the competence of the self-government bodies to carry out financial management in the broad sense, including its control. Financial management is carried out by the self-government of attorneys-at-law on the basis of regulations contained in the Act on Legal Attorneys-at-Law, which are not complete. They are supplemented by intra-authority legal acts issued, on the basis of statutory authorisations, by the self-government bodies operating at the national level. Bodies at the nationwide level are empowered in this respect, which has a unifying value.