Professor Jan Gwiazdomorski’s Concept of the Objectivisation of the Notion of Declaration of Intent under Civil Law

Abstract

The subject of this article is a description of the origins, analysis of the content, and assessment of the impact on contemporary Polish civil law doctrine of the scientific view formulated by Professor Jan Gwiazdomorski, one of the leading Polish civil law scholars of the 20^th century, which boils down to the postulate of an objectified approach to the concept of declaration of intent under civil law. The analysis includes a brief presentation of the normative, axiological, and theoretical-legal conditions for defining the concepts of legal action and declaration of will. The discussion aims to demonstrate the validity of Professor Gwiazdomorski’s concept, which, despite the passage of many years since its formulation, remains relevant, and its influence on the development of contemporary Polish civil law scholarship. Professor Gwiazdomorski’s concept is referred to by proponents of treating a legal act as a conventional act. The postulate of including an objective factor in the concept of a declaration of will is currently justified by the necessity and need to protect the trust of participants in legal transactions in the content of legal acts. Thus, Professor Gwiazdomorski’s concept, formulated over half a century ago, is now applied in legal constructs for the protection of consumers against unfair (abusive) contractual provisions.