Tusk: Over 100 deregulation bills will be ready by the end of May

By the end of May, more than 100 deregulation laws will be ready; around 120,000 regulations will be repealed, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Thursday. This includes regulations on the presumption of taxpayer innocence.

"By the end of May, we will be ready with over 100 laws deregulating the Polish economy and administration," the head of government said on TVN24.

He pointed out that this concerns, among others, the provisions concerning the presumption of innocence of the taxpayer when he is in a dispute with the tax office; full digitalization of the exchange of documents between lawyers and courts, as well as solutions regarding health care.

Referring to the above-mentioned examples, he emphasized that the taxpayer will not be punished until the tax office proves that he has actually made a "serious mistake." He pointed out that currently in such a situation it is the taxpayer who must prove that he is innocent. He also said that the full digitalization of communication between lawyers - including notaries, attorneys, prosecutors - and courts should "radically shorten the queues to court."

The Prime Minister noted that about one fifth of the deregulation package concerns - as he defined - rapid improvements in health care, which will translate into faster access to specialists by releasing the dates of uncancelled visits. "It is not technically simple, it requires a lot of work. We are already prepared for this," he assured. He explained that before the visit, the patient will have to confirm the visit "as early as possible." In his opinion, the system prepared by the government will "reduce to a minimum" the cases of uncancelled visits.

According to the head of government, over 100 laws that make up the deregulation package will repeal approximately 120 thousand regulations. He informed that in June or July, he will ask the new president whether he will be ready to sign the laws that make up this package.

The package of deregulation projects of the Ministry of Finance, including the principle of the presumption of taxpayer innocence, was adopted by the government on 13 May this year. According to the proposed regulations, in tax proceedings, which are initiated ex officio, doubts concerning the factual situation that cannot be removed will be resolved in favour of the taxpayer. This concerns situations in which the tax office is not certain about the actual circumstances of the event. After the change in the law, the tax office will have to prove the taxpayer's guilt.

In turn, this week the Council of Ministers adopted a project assuming, among other things, the obligation to submit procedural documents to the court via the information portal in civil cases - attorneys, legal advisers, patent attorneys, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Poland and prosecutors. This will also apply to certain documents, including: notification of termination of the power of attorney for legal proceedings; notification of a change of place of residence; declaration of consent to mediation; application for conducting a remote hearing and appeal, complaint, complaint against the ruling of a court registrar.

The head of the “SprawdzaMY” team, InPost CEO Rafał Brzoska, proposed using the mObywatel application to make and cancel appointments with doctors. According to him, reducing the number of unrealized appointments will shorten the queues for doctors. According to the experts of the “SprawdzaMY” initiative, the lack of a central system for registering and confirming appointments causes “empty runs” of medical facilities and waste of staff time.

According to the National Health Fund data, last year patients did not cancel 1 million 358 thousand 537 visits. In total, over the three years (2022-2024), this amounted to 3 million 876 thousand 209 visits, tests or planned procedures or surgeries. The Ministry of Health plans to launch a central e-registration. Currently, it is being piloted, which includes registrations for mammography, cytology in breast and cervical cancer prevention programs and visits to a cardiology clinic. Ultimately, the Ministry of Health wants patients to be able to register directly at a clinic or hospital or via the Online Patient Account (according to data from January 2024, 18 million people use the IKP). There would be one list of patients waiting for a given service (visit, test, procedure, surgery). One central queue would replace the lists currently kept by each clinic or hospital. In March, the Ministry of Health published a project on the launch of central e-registration.

On February 10, Prime Minister Donald Tusk proposed that Rafał Brzoska lead a team that would prepare deregulation proposals. A week later, the team published the first postulates regarding changes to the regulations. Brzoska soon after created the "SprawdzaMY" initiative, which announced that it would prepare around 300 proposals within 100 days.

Since the beginning of the "SprawdzaMY" initiative, citizens and entrepreneurs have submitted several thousand proposals for changes to the law, 70 percent of which come from citizens. From among hundreds of identified barriers, seven priority areas have been selected, the so-called Big Seven of deregulation, including: taxes, digitalization of services, justice, energy, EU law, health and improvement of administration and security. The first improvement packages were developed in these thematic silos.

At the beginning of March, the Council of Ministers passed a resolution on the coordination of the implementation of deregulation. It was announced that the government would conduct an analysis of the current legal status concerning entrepreneurs; a special team was also established, headed by Minister Maciej Berek. (PAP)

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