United for the Common Cause: Thoughts on the Act on Petitions of 11 July 2014

The paper investigates legal funding of the right to petition in Poland. It starts from a comparative background and it introduces the institution in a wider context, as a transparent and accessible for citizens legal solution, that has become an essential instrument of contemporary direct democracy and civic society. The author discusses regulations of the 2014 Acts on Petitions with reference to the Constitution of Poland and organisation of the Sejm and the Senate proceedings. Moreover, the study has placed the right to petition in a fieldwork of Polish system of human rights protection and Polish legal system in general. Finally, the paper presents results of opinion polls on direct democracy and civic engagement in Poland to discuss them with reference to previously presented construction of the right to petition as a legal institution. The author concludes with a relevant question on its further development in times of deep polarisation of Polish politics and during the Constitutional Crisis in the county