The policy of law towards professional self-governing bodies. Towards a reflexive model of law-making

Modern society comprises numerous social spheres, functionally diverse in a functional sense. The government, understood as the centre of the political system, cannot effectively manage the entire society in a centralised manner – in particular, it often lacks the specialist knowledge that would enable it to effectively regulate specific and autonomous fields. Consequently, new paradigms of governance emphasise, on the one hand, the need to respect the autonomy of social spheres, and on the other, the government's coordination of various logics that may conflict with the public interest. The project aims to conduct an empirical study of the policy of law towards professional self-governing bodies between 1997 and 2015 and to explain the structural causes of its formation in light of the results obtained, as well as to create a law-making model that would resolve the aforementioned problems. The choice of professional self-governing bodies as the subject of the study is dictated by the fact that they are the most institutionalised form of organisation of social spheres, possessing specialist knowledge and endowed with constitutionally protected autonomy to enable them to operate effectively. At the same time, these bodies oversee the proper performance of professions in the public interest and for its protection, thus exercising public authority. Therefore, from a normative point of view, the government should pursue a consistent policy towards them. However, the actual government strategies may range from centralised, "manual" management to granting almost complete freedom to the self-governing body in creating solutions. The project concerns key regulations regarding professional self-governing bodies, i.e., recruitment to the profession, disciplinary proceedings, and the manner of performing the profession, as these cause the greatest friction between the government and the self-governing bodies. The project hypothesises that successive governments did not have a consistent policy of law towards these bodies. The reasons for this lay in the institutional structure and strategies adopted by social partners and the government. These resulted in particular from: the lack of a special channel adapted to the specificity of highly organised self-governing bodies, for which social consultation instruments are insufficient; the "departmental" or "sectoral" mode of law-making at the governmental level, which prevented a consistent policy of law; the high level of organisation of self-governing bodies and awareness of branch interests, which made them exceptionally aware of their own interests and actively work to create favourable regulations for themselves. The project, using quantitative and qualitative methods, will examine legislative proceedings, and within them – the created law, draft laws, and positions of self-governing bodies. Subsequently, a theoretical model of law-making will be constructed, enabling the creation of regulations with respect for the autonomy of social spheres and the requirements of social coordination and protection of the public interest. In publicistic and academic discourse, it is usually maintained that the government, to manage effectively, must break the monopoly of interest groups that defend their entitlements. This is expressed in particular by the very popular assertion about the necessity of strengthening the position of the Council of Ministers in the law-making process. On the other hand, some academics note that this may cause the "alienation" of power and the creation of solutions that completely ignore the autonomy of social subsystems. The project will empirically trace the strategies adopted by Polish governments towards autonomous social spheres and then propose a model that goes beyond the prevalent views in discussions that strengthening the government must come at the expense of the autonomy of social spheres and vice versa.