Right of Equal Access to Public Service

Abstract

Article 60 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, adopted on 2 April 1997, grants all Polish citizens enjoying full civic rights, the right of access to public service on equal terms, thereby creating the constitutional guarantees of the right of equal access to public service, expressed in Article 21, pass. 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the UN General Assembly during its 3rd Session in Paris, on 10 December 1948 and in Article 25, point c) of the International Pact of Civil and Political Rights, opened for signature in New York on 19 December 1966. Equal access to public service constitutes one of the most important political rights that citizens are entitled to. However, determining its significance and contents creates numerous doubts. It is difficult both to establish the object of that right and the terms of reference included in it, connected with taking advantage of access to public service, including, especially, with applying for the possibility of occupying posts in that service. The principal source of these difficulties is lack of unambiguous specification of the scope of the term “public service”, which determines the object scope of that right. This term has no legal definition, whereas both in the doctrine and in the jurisdiction there are far reaching divergences as to the way of understanding it. Similar problems also concern defining the term “access”, which is of crucial importance in determining the terms of reference based on the contents of Article 60 of the RP Constitution. Many difficulties are also related to determining the subject scope of these powers, including, especially, the possibility of using the right of equal access to public service by persons who are simultaneously the citizens of other countries (states) and persons deprived of full civic rights. The article is an attempt at ordering the views concerning the significance of the right to equal access to public service and indicating the possibility of such explanation, which is the source of that right, Article 60 of the RP Constitution, which would guarantee possibly the fullest accomplishment of rights resulting from its contents.