Content, Legal Nature, Procedure for Enacting, and Legality Control of the Regulation on Changing the Civil Status Registration District

Abstract

This article analyzes the regulation on changing the civil status registration district referred to in Article 7 of the Act of 28 November 2014 – Law on Civil Status Records. This paper aims to discuss the procedure for issuing this act, to determine its content, and to define its legal nature. It also aims to establish and evaluate the procedure for reviewing the legality of the regulation. The regulation on changing the civil status registration district differs from traditional forms of secondary legislation referred to in Article 87 (1) and Article 92 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The statutory authorisation to issue it defines a specific scope of matters delegated for regulation. The regulation is issued upon application, through a procedure that requires the determination of a specific factual situation. Its normative structure is focused on individualised entities (ultimately on specific subjects and administrative authorities). The regulatory and executive character of the regulation may be subject to doubt. What is decisive, however, is the consideration of the specific nature of legal norms created by the provisions of the regulation, which belong to institutional law, as well as the effects of its issuance, which are not limited to the performance of a merely conventional act that neither derogates from nor amends existing law. The provisions of the regulation establish a rule concerning territorial jurisdiction which – although applicable to clearly defined public administration authorities – also constitutes a basis for external administrative action. Its indirect “addressees” therefore include individuals entering into legal relations with the authority. This context, combined with the results of the dogmatic method of legal analysis – confirming that the act under examination is a regulation in formal terms – supports treating such acts in a manner appropriate to regulations, even though they deviate to some extent from the general model of a regulation within the Polish legal system.