Status of Financial Supervision Committee’s resolutions

This article determines a position of resolutions adopted by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority. Within the system of sources of law these resolutions are referred to as “recommendations”, and sometimes as “guidelines”. The author aims to answer a question whether the Authority can base its executive decisions on legal norms which the Authority had articulated itself. Through an application of a formal-dogmatic and an empirical-legal approach the researcher attempts to determine whether resolutions adopted by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority can be included in a catalogue of normative forms of administrative activity, whether they can be placed within the dichotomic classification of sources of law. Are such “recommendations” legally binding for the entities in the financial market? Finally, the analysis will focus on whether the Authority has expressis verbis competence to issue “guidelines” that are subsequently directed to the insurance sector in an imperative form, with expectation of implementation thereof. Or does this supervisory Authority appropriate competence of other authorities by application of legal interpretation of the law? At the end of this dogmatic research the Author attempts to answer the question: “What is the purpose of «recommendations»”?