Local governments are obliged to provide residents with access to municipal council meetings.

• Situations in which all council members meet and municipal affairs are discussed must be transparent and allow citizens to exercise social control.
• Otherwise – even if formally no decisions are made during the meeting – the regulations on the transparency of public authorities’ activities may be violated.
• Conducting discussions on specific public matters is unlawful if it takes place outside the open session mode - emphasizes Adam Krzywoń, Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights.

After work on a new commune statute began in the urban-rural commune of Brwinów near Warsaw, the residents of Brwinów asked the city council for consultations on the draft of the new statute.

The Watchdog Poland Civic Network reports that the chairman of the city council reported that the act on local government does not provide for them, so there were no consultations. It was only indicated that comments on the draft statute can be submitted to the office. However, there was a serious problem with this - the draft of the new statute was not made available for review anywhere . It is worth mentioning here that in addition to the mandatory consultations indicated in the act, the municipal authorities can organize them in other matters important to the local community .

Soon, however, a closed "plenary meeting" was held, only for councilors, during which, among other things, the assumptions for the draft statute were presented to them and the candidacies for honorary citizen of the commune were discussed. This time, the chairman was not bothered by the fact that the act on local government does not contain a single word about "plenary meetings" of the commune council .

A complaint was filed with the Commissioner for Human Rights in this matter. The Commissioner for Human Rights therefore asked the chairman of the city council to clarify, among other things, whether during the "plenary meeting" the possibility of participation in the "meeting" was ensured for persons other than councillors of the City Council in Brwinów .

Adam Krzywoń, Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights, emphasises that conducting discussions on specific public matters - as was the case in the context of candidacies for honorary citizen of the commune - is, in the Commissioner's opinion , unlawful if it takes place outside the public session.

It is not the case that the right of citizens to observe the work of the municipal council covers only voting on resolutions. This right also covers monitoring the joint discussion of public matters by the municipal council (...) The Statute of the Brwinów Commune also directly defines discussion as a mandatory element of the proceedings of the City Council

- emphasizes the Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights, Adam Krzywoń, in a letter dated 29 May 2025.

He added that even if the meeting was of a preparatory nature and served to "pre-select" candidates, such a discussion should take place in a session open to citizens, in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the Act on Local Government .

Situations in which all council members meet and municipal matters are discussed must be transparent and allow citizens to exercise social control. Otherwise - even if no decisions are formally made during the meeting - there may be a breach of the regulations on the transparency of public authority activities.

The Commissioner for Human Rights reminds us that the line between an "informal meeting" and informal decision-making can be thin and dangerous for the transparency of the decision-making process. Especially when citizens do not have access to information about what actually happens at such meetings.

Even very active residents who want to use their constitutional right to co-govern have a problem with this, as the Brzynów example clearly shows. Local governments are increasingly closing themselves off from residents, and as a result, the residents are less and less involved locally and trust the local government less and less.

- emphasizes the Ombudsman.