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The paper presents the participation of the united Germany in the process of building the inner society of the European Union, included into the third pillar after the Treaty of Maastricht. The first part presents the achievements of the Community, and the other - the Union. The paper concentrates mainly on initiatives and activities of Germany who strongly promotes this kind of co-operation. To the most important belonged: projects on establishing Europol and Eurojust, the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the EU, and other initiatives concerning common policy of visa, asylum and immigration. The Treaty of Maastricht, the Treaty of Amsterdam and two German presidencies in the nineties are assumed by the author as points of reference in the characteristic of the German Federal Republic’s involvement into the spheres of the Union co-operation.

The paper outlines the process of creating institutions of political pluralism in Turkey and discusses the origins of the present state of Turkey and political parties operating in it. The author deals with the limits of political pluralism which are practically created by the Turkish Constitutional Tribunal that has rights to solve political groups propagating postulates or acting not in agreement with the Constitution of 1982. It should be admitted that the limits of the pluralism shaped by the interpretation of the law and the judicial decisions of the Turkish Tribunal are narrowed down. Within the latest years, 15 political parties were dissolved. Four groups appealed against the decision to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The present paper presents reasons of dissolving the parties and the Strasbourg Tribunal’s assessment concerning the legitimacy of the decision. In case of the three suing parties, the Tribunal stated that the solution was not in accordance with the European Convention of Human Rights. Only one party was dissolved complying with European standards of human rights, although in this case the judges detected a series of imprecision (the sentence was voted 4 to 3).Turkey has been trying to become a member of the European Union for many years. A large team of opponents who object to integration of this state exists within the structures of the EU. One of the crucial arguments against membership of Turkey in the European Union is its failure to comply with the law. Therefore, in order to become a rightful member of the European Community, Turkey must adjust its law and, first and foremost, its practical application to the standards of human rights. This also concerns political pluralism and freedom of organizing which seem to be the most significant matters.

The paper presents man as a human being who must cope with ethical problems every day and who faces new bioethical challenges. Since everyone has a right to derive his ideas and views from different systems of values, it seemed indispensable to present the controversial issues in broad outline in order to concentrate on common problems. As far as the particular ethical issues are concerned, the paper starts from analyzing the beginning of human life and its threat which is abortion. Then the author focuses on the problems concerning man’s life and its dangers that, at the same time, may save other people’s lives due to transplanting organs. Finally, the problem of euthanasia and the challenges it poses for the contemporary communities cannot be treated indifferently. The analysis of particular issues tried to show the significance of systems of values in some religions widespread and also attempted to point to legal solutions characteristic for international law and the one functioning in a given country. Finally, analyzing the problem of abortion, the paper subjects to the European judicial decision about human rights.

The political aspect of Muhammad’s activity in the age of islam creation was no less important than its mission and religious ones. Muhammad’s actions which in the paper were categorized as political secured him the possibility of spreading his dogmatic-religious ideas on vast areas of the Arabian Peninsula in a record short time. Muhammad’s emigration from Mecca to Yatrib had a decisive influence on the future of islam. It was a limit line between the two great stages in the history of the religion. Only after comparing the Prophet’s life in Mecca, where he was a missionary surrounded by enemies and danger, with that in Yatrib after immigration, where he was a leader and head of the state, we can learn how significant the immigration was for the Muslim religion and how important its political creation - a state was for its founder. The paper registers step after step Muhammad’s actions heading for creating the first in the history Muslim country starting from choosing the seat to sketching foreign and home policies through economy and an administrative structure. Not omitting education and science, Muhammad was conscious how significant these aspects of social life were.

The paper deals with an assessment of implementing the postulates of stabilizing policy in Poland in 1992-2001. A special attention is drawn to difficulties in maintaining the rate of unemployment at a natural level and to the reasons of high rate of unemployment established in 1998-2001. Basing on the carried out research, the author designs models of auto-regression which are used in the assessment of the future rate of unemployment. In this paper, there are widely applied quantitative methods, such as: Snecodor’s F-tests of significance, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and models of auto-regression including a multiple one.

The subject of this paper is transformation of the Democratic Left Alliance from an election organism focusing a wide range of post-communistic groups into an organizationally uniform political party. The election coalition could start to exist as a result of transformations in the political system of the state after the breakthrough in 1989 when the political life was submitted to plurálisadon. The paper presents the main actors of the election coalition of the Democratic Left Alliance: the parties and political and social groups with a special dominant role of the Social Democratic Party of Poland, and the relations between them. Besides, it presents the development of the coalition and its election and parliamentary activities. There are also presented the ideas of a new political formation with the process of its foundation. The decade of the nineties is characteristic for foundation, development and transformation of the Democratic Left Alliance as well as for working out a partnership with a left party of a different origin, i.e. the Union of Labour, which enables us to define these years as a stage of the Social Democratic Camp formation in the Republic of Poland. It was the stage of bringing closer together and uniting different subjects of the left within its main stream focused around the Social Democratic Party of Poland, and then its internal institutionalization. Preservation of a wide formula of the Left consolidation still made its ideological-policy identification difficult, which is, as it can be predicted, a challenge for the new decade.

The paper tries to sum up a few years' experiments concerning the participation of local communities in the programs of local development strategy creation. The conclusions and notices are made by the author although they have been drawn on the basis of papers and discussions carried out with a lot of people. Their inspiring output made the author formulate some generalization. The base of the paper is the author’s direct participation in working out local development strategies or a dozen or so communities in the Kujawy and Pomerania Districts, and particularly in Piotrków Kujawski (1996-1997), Mrocza (1998 and 2000), Czersk (1998-2000), Dobrcz (1999), Białe Błota (1999-2000) and Koronowo (2000). One of their key methodological assumptions was organizing and supporting active participation of local communities in the process of building the development strategy. The public opinion poll was carried out on larger and smaller groups of people in all the communities. The author was personally engaged in the polls and their analyses, and in at least a few programs he was also both an expert and animator ("facitator”) of the events and activities in a local community. Therefore, basing on practice and experience, the author points to the need of reflection on the usefulness of social science - its engagement and objectivity, and, on the other side, he shows an ambiguous role of an expert, e.g. in the process of formulating the mission of development and strategic aims by local communities. The paper is also based on more and more numerous specialist literature and on derivative reflection on realizing the idea of the local development strategy.

A membership in the European Union was a strategic aim of Poland on the turn of the last century, an expression of an aspiration for the greater part of a society to the participation and attendance of Poland at the European structures, which decided on our civilizing future. A role of the media and education in preparing the Polish people for the membership in the European Union was a case of priority. The issues concerning the EU were an important and exposed subject of the transmission in the national media, especially in the period of accession and referendum negotiations. In the years 2000 - 2004 only few terms made such a career as a term "Europe" in a public discussion. As a result of poor information about the costs and benefits of the accession to the EU structures, the media took a key role in informing the society. Together with nation-wide press, it was the local press that was shaping the European consciousness of citizens in an expressive way. It constituted a factor of integrating the local societies. It also often emphasized the values integrating the local community, being a counterweight to potential alienation in the future European structures. The press tried to create the citizens conscious of their role in making decisions on joining the EU or staying out of it. Its image was presented in this paper on the basis of two newspapers issued in the West Pomeranian Province. To sum up, it must be admitted that only some of the media carried out the profound analyses concerning the European topics. It seems that the media did not make the whole use, for different reasons, often beyond their control (e.g. financial), of the possibilities of bringing nearer and interpreting the process of European integration to the Polish public opinion.

The problem of social justice is presented as one of the most frequently analyzed issues in the political philosophy of the mid-20th century. Different opinions on this subject amount to interpreting fundamental relations between liberty and equality. Both classics and many representatives of modern liberalism take the analysis of the above issues as a point of reference for their further philosophical investigations. In this paper, the author considers the category of social justice to be a form of fundamental ethic judgment, applying to the effect the community and their political organization have on the situation of social subjects. The essence of the judgment is correlated with axiological partiality of the subject estimating the situation. However, political philosophy assumes boundary criteria which determine the specificity of individual dimensions on the axis: social justice . social injustice. The aim of the analysis is an attempt to present such circumstances in the prospect of representative philosophies of modern liberalism.

The aim of the analysis is to present a development of the human rights idea in the common legal system that is being created. The analysis concerns the Charter of Fundamental Rights proclaimed in 2000, being a document providing compliance with basic rights in the European Union order. Particular chapters emphasize that the Charter does not create new regulations but only gathers the existing ones, those already respected or at least observable, and puts them in one document. The paper also shows a significant role of general commissioners who are able and have courage, validating their opinions, to apply rightful solutions, though not in force officially. Another problem concerns issues which, in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, seem to be innovative or may become controversial in the future. As a summary, it was pointed that the birth of the Charter was justifiable, even if it is only journals of laws formulated in other legal acts.

The late eighties and early nineties, despite other transformations, engendered an interest in liberal ideas as far as their intellectual and practical aspects were concerned, which was affected by both subjective and objective conditions. One should emphasize that the renaissance of liberalism was perceived in the latter part of the 20th century. After a long period of crisis, its ideas and their application became of great interest with politicians as well as political philosophers and the ideologists. At the same time, liberalism, in its classic interpretation, has never been a trend strongly existing in the consciousness of the Polish society. It was mainly a historical background that decided about such an opinion: a weak development of capitalism, political culture of the fight for the nation’s independence, and Poland’s dramatic history in the 20th century. The interest in liberalism also found its reflection in programs of political parties set up after 1989, and particularly those of "oppositional genesis”. The leading parties were: the Union for Real Politics and the Liberal Democratic Congress. It ought to be emphasized that liberal ideas were also reflected in program proposals of those political parties who identified themselves with such political ideas, e.g. the Social Democracy for the Republic of Poland and the Democratic Left Alliance. One should also pay attention to the fact that liberal ideas are differently interpreted, which may reflect global discussion on liberalism. On one hand, there could be noticed some tendencies to follow its neo-liberal character (e.g. the programs of the Liberal Democratic Congress), and on the other, one may perceive a tendency towards applying liberalism to the Polish conditions and social expectations. The evolution of the idea in the programs of the Democratic Union may illustrate this fact, which has been presented in this paper.

The paper touches on the up-to-date problem concerning the role of the public opinion in politics. The process of democratic transformation causes and must cause an increase in the role the citizens play in coping with various matters and making appropriate decisions. The thing is that those who decide should take the public opinion into consideration. Specialised institutes carry out polls pointing in this way at the atmosphere and the opinion of the pubic. Spokespersons also play their important role. In fact the efficient governing is hardly possible without knowing the public opinion, which particularly matters during the election campaign. The author takes up a number of problems regarding the poll and moulding the public opinion.

The paper tries to define the concept of affirmative action presented against the background of other instruments (such as positive discrimination and the politics of equal opportunity) that overcome marginalisation of social groups based mainly on racial criterion. The author also portrays a historic evolution of affirmative action from non-discrimination to preferences and compensating treatment, as well as from displacing accents from colorblindness towards race-conscious remedies. Simultaneously, the considerations have been shown in the light of present discussion on the usefulness of this kind of solutions, which, in the author’s opinion, is based on dissimilar views regarding socially significant values.

The process of civilization and cultural development at growing ecological crisis requires pro-ecological comprehensive changes in all spheres of public life. Their base should become an idea defined as “balanced development” whose essence is aspiration for harmonizing social and economic spheres of man’s life with nature. The result of the harmony comprehended in this way may influence the quality of life increasing its natural and cultural values and steering it towards justice within species, generations, and regions.The balanced development include transformations in economy, society, technique and space, all aiming at securing welfare for the present and future generations, as well as durability and variety of nature including each aspect of human life. All the processes may take place due to securing a demanded quality of environment and people’s health, nature conservation, understanding pro-ecological trends in politics and economy including rational using of natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable). The mentioned above issues in the context of the balanced development idea arc quoted by signatories of final documents at the Earth Summits in Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg.The paper presents an outline of methods of realising and achieving aims in spheres of society, politics, economy, and nature - according to the idea of balanced development included in the Declaration from Rio on Environment and Development (the Earth Charter). the Global Program of Action - Agenda 21, Political Declaration of Johannesburg on the Balanced Development, and the Scheme of Action pointing at fighting against poverty not destroying natural resources of the Earth.

So far no thinker has seemed to define the idea called "freedom of communication” being a syndrome of contemporary times and the future society of computer science in which information tends to be the most important “matter”. No one has defined either what freedom of communication is to become or what it consists in. What are its conditions and restrictions, not mentioning its essence? The paper tries to outline the contemporary comprehension of freedom including justice and equal rights, as well as their ethic relations to communication. Freedom, justice and equal rights are currently very distinct and intensive on the Internet which is becoming more and more popular. The Internet is a comparatively new means of social communication and extremely different from others known so far. Its technological possibilities give everyone a chance of sending information to people all over the world making it generally available. However, these new possibilities bring into existence moral dilemmas not occuring before. Lots of them have already appeared with great sharpness. We should expect further problems to emerge the more so as the access to the Internet is being widespread and technological restrictions concerning the capacity of the network system seem to be gradually removed. As it results from the undertaken considerations, the problems of freedom, justice and equal rights on the Internet are very significant and current. The relations and mutual dependences occurring among the three ideas and appearing during analyses seem to be very interesting. Freedom and equal rights are supposed to be dependent on justice which, in turn, is subject to law and truth. Hence, the conclusion is that ethical reflection is of minor significance while searching for solving ethical dilemmas regarding the Internet. These problems must be regulated according to the law. It is also worth noticing that there exists an urgent need of further studies on the problem of communication ethic, particularly in the new future society of computer science.

Article 12 of the press law ordering journalists particular care and reliability while collecting and using press materials as well as protection of personal goods and chattels determines the limits of freedom for journalist comments. Journalist reliability and care are strictly connected with the question of truth in the related issues. The paper contains analyses of the situations in which journalists of the Bydgoszcz press broke their duties. The presented here considerations are made on the base of the law courts’ decisions in Bydgoszcz. The investigated source material concerns acts of 37 civil matters and 9 criminal cases including the years 1984-2000. It can be stated that the described period is characterized by cohesion and uniformity of views. The assessments issued by appeal instances prove undoubtedly objectivity and clarity in judging. It may head towards stabilizing the judiciary’s views on the matter of journalist freedom.

The paper deals with comparative analysis of the two historic moments in which cosmopolitism was a certain recipe for life. The moments were distinct from each other of about 2500 years, but with some common characteristic features. The question concerns Asia Minor in the 4,h and 3rd centuries B.C. and the Old Continent of the late years of 2O'h century. The matter regards the Hellenic world based on the idea of Alexander the Great and the united Europe based on Shuman’s idea. Despite a large difference in time, astonishing historical and ideological similarities may help not only to analyze the present reality but also to forecast the future of the European community structure which is now being created. According to the author, the contemporary European countries have to decide fast what political form the integrated organism in statu nascendi may assume. Otherwise, the countries will share the fate of Hellenic world, a beautiful stoic blow of cosmopolitism that finished very fast and suddenly.

The breakthrough of 1989 and implementation of the "Balcerowicz’s Plan’’ resulted in raising hope for determined and fast reformation of the Polish economy and state administration. From the beginning of transformation these two problems became basic for programs created by parties and political groups. This paper is an analysis of only the programs which concern projects of political transformations. Therefore, the attention is focused on such political formations as the Liberal-Democratic Congress, the Union for Real Politics, Democratic Union (Union for Freedom) or Social Democratic Party of Poland (Democratic Left Alliance). It is also worth noticing that regarding the existence of different types of liberalism. an attempt was made to describe a variety of the doctrine characteristic for a given party or a political group. Considering the role of the state in relation to the individual and the public, there were differentiated: neo-liberalism, conservative liberalism and communitarism.