The Polish Civil Service

by

 Weronika Tkocz

List of Contents.

1. Introduction/ Overview 4

2. Theory 5

3. Between the Wars 6

4. The Polish People′s Republic 9

5. Reforming the Administration in the 90′s 13

6. The 1996 Civil Service Law 15

7. Critique and Comments 17

8. The 1998 Discussion 20

9. The 1998 Civil Service Law 22

10. Polish Administration and Ethics 24

11. Conclusions 30

A. List of Abbreviations 33

B. Literature 33

B.1 Articles 35

1. INTRODUCTION/ OVERVIEW

"The civil service can be compared to… a piano, that stays the same no matter the person playing, nor the tune. After the work of Beethoven it doesn′t have to be dismantled or exchanged to play Bach or Chopin."

Valéry Turcey¹

Civil service, a part of public administration. The quotation above is one of the best to illustrate the nature of this institution. But, what actually is civil service? Writing about the Polish central administration in the 20th century, one cannot omit mentioning the beginning, the birth of administration in Europe, theoretical approaches, and finally the answer to the above question. I decided to close all that in the 2nd chapter: Theory for to solve any doubts and for a better understanding of the rest. The first chapter about Poland presents the establishing of public administration and civil service in the 20`s and the 30′s, after over a century of non-existence. It introduces Polish projects of re-forming the administration, consequence of a military coup d′état and an authoritarian regime. The next chapter is about the destruction of all administrative achievements of the 2nd Polish Republic, politicisation and dissolvation of the civil service during the communist regime after the World War 1939-45 and positive changes in the 80′s that were the result of a critical situation of the Polish People′s Republic. Then the 90′s, the end of the non-democratic regime, new reality, the idea and the need to re-create the civil service, project, the creation and the role of the KSAP (National School of Public Administration) are being shown. The 6th chapter concerns the enacting of the first Civil Service Law and the next - wide, open critique of it, in addition the questions of civil service and the new constitution.. In the 8th chapter the focus is on the discussion that appeared in 1998, when already a new project of the law was being worked out, and generally regarded the existence of the civil service. Subsequently, the next part pre-sents the 1998 Civil Service Law, most important differences and innovations and again the doubts connected to it. The last, but particularly important chapter of my work in-troduces ethical aspects not only of the civil service but of the public administration as a whole. The main reason is the very "young age" of the civil service corps in Poland and the similarity of the problems bothering them, civil service is after all a part of the pub-lic administration. Being discussed are the problems of corruption, misbehaviour, inef-ficiency and at the very end the need for a Code of Ethics for the civil service. The summary presents conclusions and conditions that must be fulfilled if Poland wants to have a real, fair and professional civil service.

2. THEORY

In different countries, there are different criteria defining civil service, different ways of employing the servants, different duties and responsibilities of the officials. Partially it comes from two dissimilar ways of thinking about the state, that were formed in 18th and 19th century, when the models of modern democratic systems were being formed. First of these traditions, the "Hegelian" or continental one, says that citi-zens are treated like a "mass" of which the public administration should take special care and which it should manage wisely. The second, utilitarian-liberal or Anglo-Saxon, states that the citizens decided to limit their individual laws and to let a "supervisor body" to control them.²

It is quite difficult to find these qualities that could be essential in distinguishing civil servants from other officials working in the public administration. From the first sight English and French civil service are far from each other like sun and moon, they consist of different groups of the public servants, different number of the officials with different duties and responsibilities. However, many tried and managed to find this es-sence, these general, basic truths that are inseparable connected with the civil service, all over the democratic world:

• It is the state that by lawful regulations establishes the conditions under which the civil service works (including employment, wages and promotions);
• Civil servants are obliged to keep absolute loyalty to the constitution and gov-erning powers;
• they also have to stay in complete impartiality and political neutrality;
• their duty is to work for the welfare of the state;
• in consequence they have strengthened responsibility;
• being a civil servant is a very durable profession, usually supported by a special way of employing - e.g. nomination; there are very limited possibilities to dis-miss the civil servant;
• civil servants have limited certain political and citizens rights (right to strike, passive electoral right, being member of or to hold any function in political par-ties, etc) as long as they work for the state;
• but also, they have guarantied by the state certain privileges as a compensation for their devotion (stable wages, better pensions, health care).

The best point is the quotation of Margaret Thatcher that formulated the advan-tages of that organised administration and civil service in words: "…it lets to change the government by minimum fuss and maximum effectiveness."

3. BETWEEN THE WARS

[...]

1 Valéry Turcey, general secretary of the Trade Union of The Administrative Tribunal Judges in France, during the conference about the civil service organised by KSAP, Warsaw 14-15.03.1996

2 Guy B. Peters, , p.10