Possession of agricultural lands as a condition of acquiring the right to direct payments

The article contains an analysis of premises of acquiring uniform direct payments, with special emphasis on the regulations concerning the demand for possessing agricultural lands (covered by the motion for the admission of payment). The aim of the authors’ deliberations is to determine what meanings the notion „possession” is used in the regulations. The legislator of these regulations does not define the term „possession”, referring instead to the definition contained in the civil code. Yet, to satisfy the demand for possessing agricultural lands, additional premises are to be fulfilled. Legal regulations concerning payments introduce a kind of a qualified possession consisting in actual agricultural usage of lands. The article points to some terminological problems on the private–public law border, reflected in judicial decisions. Legal character of payments indicates that direct payments belong to a public–legal sphere, whereas the legislator uses private law notions to define premises of acquiring the right to them.Jerzy Bieluk - Uniwersytet w Białymstoku; Dorota Łobos–Kotowska - Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicac