Wolny zawód — mit czy rzeczywistość prawna?

Abstract

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE — A MYTH OR A LEGAL REALITY?

The article is an attempt at answering the question whether the term “member of a liberal profession” is conceptually a relic of the past or it is still recognized and taken by modern regulations into a reasonable account. The doctrine specialized literature refers to this issue in different ways. So far, there is no normative definition of a “professional service”, although the term is used by the legislator in the acts. The best example is Article 88 of the Code of Commercial Companies where “professional services” are enlisted. This situation — according to the author — is highly unsatisfactory, because it does not allow for a clear definition of what a “professional service” is and what it is not.
According to the Act on Freedom of Business Activity  and the Civil Code, an entrepreneur is a person who performs in its own name business or professional activity. On this basis, in the literature it is believed that members of a liberal profession remain in the field of definition of entrepreneurs.
Such perception of these people is, in the opinion of the author, an oversimplification because the characteristics of “professional services” differ markedly from those of a typical entrepreneur, which allows for a distinction of this professional group in a separate category of entities.