The protection of internal security and constitutional order as exemplified by the tasks and activity of the Internal Security Agency: a critical analysis of de lege lata and de lege ferenda regulations

Abstract

"The main objective of the paper is to present the issues of the protection of internal security and constitutional order in view of the tasks and activities of the Internal Security Agency in Poland. The author of the text seeks answers to the following questions. (1) To what extent does the lack of clear-cut frames for the ISA's activity influence the instrumental use of this agency? (2) Do over-generalised legal regulations on the ISA's activities lead to poorer efficiency of this agency's operations? (3) Does faulty regulation related to the ISA’s range of activities result from inadequacies in Polish legislation, or maybe from the intention to endow the special services with greater freedom of action? In reference to the above questions, the author puts forward the following theses: (1) the selected and analysed legal instruments exert an infinitesimal influence on the scope of the application of "special measures", such as the operational control or access to telecommunications data. Art. 3 of the Bill of 2014 contains too many vague terms or expressions whose legal definitions are missing from Polish legislation; (2) it seems reasonable that the range of the ISA's activities has been restricted, e.g. as regards drug-related crime. However, other areas of the ISA’s interest have witnessed few changes, and its impromptu involvement with specific threats and offences is left to the "political decision" of the Head of the ISA and the Minister of the Interior; (3) the impractical solutions are partly a result of an inadequate "legislative culture", in this case, at the level of the Ministry of the Interior. This shortcoming might be the result of excessive haste during work on the Bill; nevertheless, such works always carry a political load, which means that the interests of the services themselves, as well as of the state, played an enormous role in this project." (author's abstract)