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The subject of the article is the analysis of the legal basis and practice of establishing patrons of local government units in Poland. The text presents the importance of the principle of equality before the law and the equality of churches and religious associations as a guarantee of pluralism of world-view. The presented proposals for changes in the law take into account the normative content of the above principles.

The classical distinction between the natural and the artificial is gradually losing its original sharpness. Biotechnology can be used not only for therapeutic purposes but also to enhance human cognitive, emotional, moral, or physical abilities. This article discusses three of the most important socio-ethical issues related to the impact of neuroenhancement on individuals and on society. It closely examines threats to the principle of autonomy in the case of two selected technologies for neuroenhancement: the Brain – Computer Interface and gene technologies applied to the enhancement of other beings. The article also discusses the influence of social pressure on autonomous decision-making by individuals and whether social pressure is a sufficient reason for not accepting neuroenhancement. Finally, within the context of many concerns about the widening of social inequality as the result of the spread of enhancement practices, this article examines whether such disparities can be avoided and whether the principle of equal opportunities can be regarded as a sufficient criterion of equality.

In this paper, I question the argument from human dignity found in the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (UDHGHR) and in the recent views of the International Bioethics Committee (IBC). I focus on what this argument says about the permissibility of two broad categories of reprogenetic choices that may be available to prospective parents in the genomic era. The argument from human dignity holds that non-medical genetic selection and somatic enhancements ought to be prohibited because they violate the principle of human dignity. I argue that human dignity need not be violated by the enterprise of human genetic selection/somatic enhancement if reasonable social safeguards are established. In particular, I argue that respecting the reprogenetic choices of the decision-maker is paramount within the boundaries of (i) prohibiting the infliction of a shortened lifespan or pain upon the child; (ii) prohibiting the actualization of demeaning beliefs or intentions such as viewing certain groups as inferior; (iii) prohibiting the choice resulting from an expression of unwillingness to love and care for the child; and, with respect to somatic gene enhancements in particular, (iv) the potentially unjustified effects of the enhancement on others, if any, are reasonably addressable (and addressed) via social modifications so as to ensure the enhancement no longer risks adversely affecting them. With these limits, reprogenetic autonomy cannot be said to undermine the dignity of humans by creating unjustified harms or expressing demeaning ideas.

Equality of opportunity is about leveling the playing field so that circumstances such as gender, ethnicity, place of birth, or family background do not influence a person's life chances. Success in life should depend on people's choices, effort and talents, not to their circumstances at birth. 'Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean' introduces new methods for measuring inequality of opportunities and makes an assessment of its evolution in Latin America over a decade. An innovative Human Opportunity Index and other parametric and non-parametric techniques are presented for quantifying inequality based on circumstances exogenous to individual efforts. These methods are applied to gauge inequality of opportunities in access to basic services for children, learning achievement for youth, and income and consumption for adults.

This article is devoted to establishing the constitutional foundations of the right to fair remuneration. This right results from acts of international law and the Labor Code, but there is no provision in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland that would directly guarantee the right to fair remuneration. Therefore establishing this right requires reference to a number of constitutional provisions. Fundamental importance should be attached to the right to minimum remuneration for work (Art. 65 sec. 4 of the Constitution), which, in the context of the Labor Code, is sometimes equated with fair remuneration. However, the constitutional guarantees of fair remuneration are much broader. They result from constitutional principles, including the principle of the social market economy (Art. 20), the principle of equality (Art. 32 and 33), the principle of social justice (Art. 2) and the principle of labor protection (Art. 24), as well as other provisions, including Art. 64 sec. 1–2 (protection of fair remuneration as a property right) and Art. 71 (the principle of family protection). According to the author of this article, the constitutional right to fair remuneration thus constructed may be defined as a subjective right that is subject to judicial protection.

The Bernese Civil Code (1824–1830) and Its Impact on Socio-Political Development* The objective of this paper is to present the dynamics of events and dependencies, which resulted in the enactment of the Bernese Civil Code, as well as the importance and consequences of this work in the development of civil law and civil society in the canton of Bern. The paper addresses the issues concerning the question as to whether it is possible for an act of civil law to become a source of rules which, not finding sufficient protection in the existing constitutional system, cause changes in the latter. Did the codification of private law and the act of providing the ideas of freedom and equality with statutory protection result in the fall of the governance existing in Bern in the first half of the 19th century? Or was it perhaps the result of the accumulation of internal and external circumstances, leading to a formal sanctioning of systemic changes which had already occurred? The process of codification and systemic change in Bern constitutes an excellent example of the interdependence between private and publiclegal legislation and the fact that constitutional law does not always have to be the primary source of state protection covering basic social values. *Artykuł powstał w ramach realizacji projektu Narodowego Centrum Nauki pt. „Szwajcarski kodeks cywilny z 10 grudnia 1907 roku – cele i metody”, nr UMO-2017/26/D/HS5/00625.

In this paper, I propose a framework to analyse the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations. It focuses on two main issues: the existence of a legitimate expectation and the protection that such an expectation deserves. On the first issue, I define the expectations, outline the internalist approach to legitimacy that I endorse in this context and explain two elements that make the legitimacy of the expectation vary (i.e. the passage of time and the type of law). On the second issue, I first address the question of competing interests in general and the principle of equality in particular. Paying attention to the principle of equality implies we should look at the relative situation, after the change, of the persons that lose from the change and of the rest of the population. I then approach the balance of interests.

The equality in human rights and obligations, the equality of citizens before the law are fundamental categories of the theories on social democracy but also conditions of the lawful state, without which constitutional democracy cannot be conceived. In Romanian Constitution, this principle is consecrated in the form of equality of the citizens before the law and public authorities. There are also particular aspects of this principle consecrated in the Fundamental Law. The equality before the law and public authorities cannot imply the idea of standardizing, uniformity, enlisting of all citizens under the same legal regime, regardless of their natural or socio-professional situation. The constitutional principle of equality requires that equal treatment be applied to equal situations. This social and legal reality implies numerous interferences between the principle of equality and other constitutional principles: the principle of identity and diversity, the principle ofpluralism, principle of unity and, in particular, the principle of proportionality. In this study, by using theoretical and jurisprudential arguments, we intend to demonstrate that, in relation to contemporary social reality, equality, as a constitutional principle, is a particular aspect of the principle ofproportionality. The latter one expresses in essence the ideas of: fairness, justice, reasonableness and fair appropriateness of state decisions to the facts and legitimate aims proposed.

There are two ways in which the social ideal of equality has found expression in the law: in the principle of equal treatment and in the principle of non-discrimination. In this article the meaning of these two legal principles is analysed, in order to answer the question to what extent they can be said to contribute to equality in the sense of an equal distribution of collective resources. It is argued that whereas the first just requires decision-making to be rule-based, the second principle demands that rules should be based on sound categorical distinctions. Neither of the two can, however, sensibly be linked to equality as equal distribution. The article concludes that the only way to establish such a link is by adding to the principle of non-discrimination “financial resources” as a suspect ground.