Commentary on the Judgement of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Lublin of 21 October 2020 (II SA/Lu 782/19, LEX no. 3088379)

Abstract

The commented judgement of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Lublin concerns the manner of determining the amount of a variable fee for discharging rainwater and snowmelt into waters. In this context, two elements of the ruling deserve attention and comment: 1) the manner of determining the amount of the fee resulting from the provisions of substantive law; 2) the manner of establishing the factual circumstances necessary to issue a decision on the fee in reference to the principle of objective truth resulting from Article 7 of the Code of Administrative Procedure. The vote interpreted the substantive law, i.e. Article 272 (5) of the Water Law Act, which stated that the same manner of calculating the fixed fee and the variable fee could not be used, since by the will of the legislator these are two different, in essence, components of the general fee, and the key component determining their amount is completely different. Reference was also made to the part of the justification of the assessed judgement in which the Court stated the necessity to supplement the evidence proceedings and refer to the means of evidence referred to in Article 75 (1) of the Code of Administrative Procedure, including first and foremost the evidence from the meteorological data obtained from the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management.