Życie rodzinne” w prawie polskim. Czym jest, a czym nie jest?

This article concerns the understanding of the term “family life” on ground of Polish law. An attempt to answer the question above will be made under the provisions of Polish law, mainly the Polish Constitution and international standards binding for Poland, especially the European Convention on Human Rights and the Polish membership in the European Union. There are several provisions in the Polish Constitution, but the most controversial is Art. 18, which provides that “Marriage, being a union of a man and a woman, as well as the family, motherhood and parenthood, shall be placed under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland”. There are a lot of interpretations what family life really means. Latest Constitiuonal interpretations provide that "Constitutionally preferred vision of the family is stable union between a woman and a man targeted to motherhood and responsible parenthood”. There are strong controversies on qualification of civil partnership as a “family life”. From one side, The Supreme Court assumes that Art. 18 of the Constitution excludes potential regulation of homosexual or heterosexual civil partnership. On the other hand, the Committee of Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences provides that there are state obligations to regulate civil partnership as a part of family life. The second statement has its reflection on ECHR standards, especially from the judgment in the case: Schalk and Kopf vs. Austria and in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union. In the last part of the article, there was an issue concerning the influence of child for family. Child in Constitutional and ECHR view was not necessary to establish family life.

Adam Ploszka