Urban Planner as the Profession of Public Trust

Abstract

When regulating the urban planning profession in 2000, the legislator established a professional association and deemed that it had the status of a profession of public trust. This state of affairs lasted for fourteen years, when the so-called Deregulation Act of 9 May 2014 on Facilitating Access to Certain Regulated Professions (Journal of Laws, item 768, hereinafter referred to as: Deregulation Act.) abolished the professional association of urban planners and provided that the urban planning profession lost its status of a profession of public trust. The above Act was appealed to the Constitutional Tribunal, which was to examine its compliance with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. In its judgment of 24 March 2015 (Case file no. K 19/14, Journal of Laws of 2015, item 476.), the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that the norms of the above Act did not violate the Constitution; however, it did not address the legal nature of the urban planning profession at all.

The aim of this article is to show, on the basis of the above-mentioned judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal, characteristic features of the urban planning profession, compare it with the professions of architect and civil engineer, and determine whether, owing to its characteristics, it is a profession of public trust or not. According to the author, the urban planning profession has the status of a profession of public trust, which should be of key importance for the Constitutional Tribunal’s assessment of the constitutionality of legal norms contained in the aforementioned Act.