The deadline for the announcement of the ruling on regulations introducing a ban on Sunday trading was set for July 27 – the website of the Constitutional Tribunal announced. An application in this matter was submitted in the Constitutional Tribunal in 2018 by the Lewiatan Confederation.
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On July 27, the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal
The case is dealt with by a panel of five judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, chaired by Jarosław Wyrembak. The rapporteur for the case is Judge Justyn Piskorski, and the composition also included the President of the Constitutional Tribunal, Julia Przyłębska, and Judges Zbigniew Jędrzejewski and Andrzej Zielonacki.
Originally, the date of announcing the ruling in this case was set for March 24 this year. At that time, however, the term was canceled. Currently, the Constitutional Tribunal has announced on its website that the new date of the public announcement of the ruling is set for Tuesday 27 July this year. at. 10.30.
Work in the parliament on the act on restricting trade on Sundays and public holidays and on some other days ended on January 10, 2018. President Andrzej Duda signed these regulations on January 30, 2018, and the act entered into force on March 1, 2018.
Four provisions of the Act are challenged
The request of the Lewiatan Confederation in this case was submitted to the Constitutional Tribunal already in May 2018. In general, four provisions of the Act were challenged in this application – including the key article stating that “on Sundays and public holidays, trade and activities related to trade, entrusting employees with or an employee performing work in trade and activities related to trade – are prohibited ”.
As indicated in the application, this regulation “does not meet the criteria of permissible interference with freedom of work (…), since it produces effects that are incompatible with the image of a democratic state ruled by law, i.e. it leads to collective redundancies in some industries, reduces income or increases the size of working on days slower so far, and also causes a discriminatory effect, creating a group of privileged employers and employees ”.
Lewiatan also appealed against another provision of the act, which – according to the organization – “differentiates employees as to the freedom to work on certain days”. It is an article listing exceptions to the Sunday trading ban. The act allows for a number of exceptions to the prohibition, e.g. at petrol stations, and also when, for example, the predominant activity of the facility consists in trading flowers, souvenirs or devotional items, the press, public transport tickets, tobacco products, coupons for games of chance, sale of bakery products and in commercial establishments where the predominant activity is catering.
The result of this regulation is the creation of a group of employees and employers who will not be affected by the negative consequences of the entry into force of the Act, including loss of job, income or the need to pay severance pay, including
– assessed in the application.
Another of the challenged provisions concerns the concept of performing work on Sunday, which – as provided in the Act – should be understood as “the performance of such work or activities by an employee or employed during a period of 24 consecutive hours falling, respectively, between 24.00 on Saturday and 24.00 on Sunday” .
On the other hand, the Labor Code (…) indicates that Sunday and public holidays last between 6 am on that day and 6 am on the next day, unless a given employer has set a different time
– recalled in the application to the Constitutional Tribunal. According to the complainants, such regulations of both acts de facto prevent the correct interpretation of the provisions.
The last of the articles challenged by Lewiatan concerned vacatio legis.
The Act entered into force on March 1, 2018. Given that the Act was published on February 5, 2018 in the Journal of Laws, vacatio legis was only 23 days
– napisano.
In standpoints addressed to the Constitutional Tribunal, the Sejm and the Public Prosecutor General requested that some of the challenged provisions be considered constitutional, and some that the case should be discontinued by the Tribunal.
wkt / PAP
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