Access to a Court in Matters Concerning Disputes of an Individual with the Public Administration in the Republic of Poland vs. the Standards of the Council of Europe

This paper focuses specifically on the fundamental part of the right to a fair trial, namely access to a court. The aim of this article is an attempt to analyse the difference between the requirements of European standards and how they are reflected in Polish legislation. First of all, I am going to analyze basic European standards specified in Article 6(1) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Recommendation Rec(2004)20 on the judicial review of administrative acts and in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Then I will focus on selected aspects of the problem of judicial review of administrative acts specified in the Act of 30th August 2002 Law on Proceedings before Administrative Courts. I will discuss several specific topics from this field, which can be considered as crucial in relation to access to court, namely: definition of terms for access to justice by an individual, exhausting administrative remedies before judicial review, locus standi and legal aid.