Under the Polish constitutional order, the decentralization of public authority constitutes a normative systemic principle (Article 15 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland). At the same time, the realization of the social market economy principle requires dialogue and cooperation between the state and social partners (Article 20). The institutional representative of entrepreneurs ought to be public law chambers of commerce — yet no such body has been established. The Act on Chambers of Commerce of 1989 (Article 2) erroneously designates the private-law associations formed under its provisions as "organizations of economic self-government", a result of the legislator's flawed conflation of the concepts of self-administration and self-government.
The article advances the thesis that public law chambers of commerce constitute a constitutionally admissible and systemically indispensable instrument for the realization of decentralization and functional deregulation within the sphere of public economic law. In the absence of such a body, both processes remain deprived of an adequate institutional vehicle.
The analysis examines the constitutional meaning of the concepts of decentralization and self-government under Articles 15, 16, and 20 of the Constitution - with reference to Chapter VII provisions on the performance and financing of public tasks - in relation to Article 17(2), which permits the establishment of public-law chambers of commerce as a particular form of special self-government. Consideration is also given to the statutory provisions establishing agricultural chambers and the Polish Insurance Chamber, as well as to Article 5(3) of the Act on Chambers of Commerce. The analysis leads to the conclusion that a deep decentralization of the performance of public tasks nd the requirements of functional deregulation through public law chambers of commerce are grounded in the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.