Independence of public administration authorities in the example of evolution of the legal status of President of the Office for Competition and Consumer Protection

Abstract

The article analyzes the issue of independence of public administration authorities. This analy-sis is based on the example of the Polish antimonopoly authority. It includes presenting the evolution of the legal status of an antimonopoly authority and discussing its current legal regime. The pre-sented research also covered the ECN+ Directive and the obligations it imposes on national govern-ments in relation to the independence of national antitrust authorities. The article also addresses the problem of the actual independence of the antimonopoly authority and the insufficient guarantees of its accountability. The conclusions show that the formal independence of the antimonopoly authority may in Polish conditions lead to effects contrary to the assumptions of the ECN+ Directive.