Dissenting opinions in the jurisprudence of administrative courts in matters of social security in the light of empirical legal research

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to analyze the separate opinions submitted to judgments of administrative courts in cases of social security benefits issued in the years 2004–2021. As a result of research activities, material was collected in the form of 71 judgments of voivodeship administrative courts (hereinafter: the Voivodeship Administrative Court) and 34 judgments of the Supreme Administrative Court of Poland (hereinafter: the Supreme Administrative Court). This led to the following research results: the VAC judges very rarely submit dissenting opinions to judgments in social security cases (dissenting opinions were submitted to <1% of judgments in 2004–2021); frequency of dissenting opinion should be described as low (≈ 4 times per year); the greatest number of dissenting opinions were submitted by the VAC judges in cases of social assistance (59% of the examined judgments); the dispute among the judges of the VAC most often concerned the interpretation of the law (61% of the examined judgments); only 34 of the examined VAC judgments were subject to substantive review by the SAC, which issued a judgment consistent with the view expressed in a dissenting opinion in only 10 cases (29%).