Jubilee Book for prof. Kocowski

In the book published to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of prof. Tadeusz Kocowski, articles of distinguished representatives of public economic law, administrative law, and economic sciences were included. The book was titled „Współczesne funkcje państwa wobec gospodarki”. The articles present a comprehensive approach to both theoretical and practical aspects of the state’s influence on the economy. They also present general legal instruments for the intervention of public authorities in economic relations, as well as specific issues, regarding particular areas of legal regulation of economic life – among others, competition law, energy law and public procurement law.

Professor Tadeusz Kocowski was born on 25 December, 1951 in Wrocław. He has been connected to the capital of Lower Silesia since birth. Here he completed his primary and secondary education, after which he began his studies in administration at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics of the University of Wrocław. He graduated with a master’s degree in 1974. While still being a student, Tadeusz Kocowski was hired as a research and technical staff member at the University of Wrocław in 1973.

Since the beginning of his academic career, prof. Tadeusz Kocowski stood out with his remarkable academic and didactic talents, quickly noticed by his superiors. In an opinion on his talent for research work, prof. Adam Chełmoński stated that “mgr T. Kocowski shows research diligence, ingenuity in choosing methods, and good substantive preparation in the field of economic administrative law”. Additionally, prof. Jan Jendrośka emphasised that “mgr T. Kocowski is a talented academic teacher, who can easily connect with students and convey knowledge of the subject. This is facilitated by his personality traits: calmness, tact and discipline”. It is not surprising, that this young and talented scholar quickly climbed the academic career ladder. Over the years, he was promoted to the positions of intern, assistant, senior assistant, and in 1980 he became an assistant professor. In the same year, he obtained a doctoral degree in law based on his dissertation Struktura prawna ciągów działań w przedsiębiorstwie w dziedzinie zaopatrzenia materiałowego, supervised by prof. Adam Chełmoński. However, his next promotion took somewhat longer. In 2010, prof. Tadeusz Kocowski obtained the degree of habilitated doctor on the basis of his monograph Reglamentacja działalności gospodarczej w polskim administracyjnym prawie gospodarczym. It was worth the wait – the monograph was the first comprehensive work devoted to the key theoretical category of economic law, which is the regulation of economic activity, and it is still widely quoted in the literature. In 2010, Tadeusz Kocowski was promoted to full professor at the University of Wrocław, and in 2020 he received the title of scientific professor.

The academic activity of prof. Tadeusz Kocowski has essentially focused on the legal regulation of economic life. Over the years, the regulation reflected the different roles played by the state in the functioning of the economy. At the beginning of his academic work, during the period of the command-and-control economy system, the primary sphere of prof. Kocowski’s research was the legal mechanisms of the material and technical supply system in the economy. Research in this field was characterised by high theoretical importance – primarily due to the interpenetration of various legal measures (administrative law, civil law, financial law), as well as its close connection with business practice. Because of this, prof. Tadeusz Kocowski was an active participant in the projects carried out by the University of Wrocław on behalf of the State Materials Management Council.

The transformation of the economy, that began in the late 1980s and early 1990s, brought a radical change in the paradigm of the state’s influence on the economy. At that time, prof. Tadeusz Kocowski became one of the leading representatives of law science. He directed his research towards the problems and challenges related to the adjustment of the legal regulation of the economy to a system based on economic freedom and the leading role of the private sector. In this context, prof. Kocowski’s works on ownership transformation and privatisation played an especially important role. However, the paramount contribution of prof. Kocowski to contemporary economic law is his academic activity concerning the functions of the state in relation to the economy. His achievement was to define the identity of the functions of fundamental importance in the conditions of the social market economy system – economic police and economic regulation. It is hard to imagine a more substantial theoretical work in the field of public economic law, that would not contain references to the already mentioned monograph Reglamentacja działalności gospodarczej w polskim administracyjnym prawie gospodarczym or to the articles by prof. Tadeusz Kocowski included in the study Publiczne prawo gospodarcze in the series System Prawa Administracyjnego. It is also impossible not to mention Professor’s numerous works on another of the state’s functions in the economy – the management of public property. In this area, he was particularly interested in public procurement law.

Teaching activity is an important area of prof. Kocowski’s academic work. He is remembered as a lecturer with the highest competences, capable of presenting theoretical knowledge in the context of current social and economy events, and as a teacher who does not avoid enriching his lectures with anecdotes and humour. He is often eagerly chosen as a supervisor of master’s and bachelor’s theses. He also supervised four doctoral dissertations, all of which ended with successful defences and the awarding of a doctoral degree in law. Professor Tadeusz Kocowski also made a significant contribution to enriching the didactic offer of the University of Wrocław. It was his idea to create a master’s degree programme in Legal and economic consulting, jointly run with Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, as well as postgraduate studies in Public Procurement Law and Internal Security and Threat Situations in Public Administration)

Professor Kocowski’s creativity and communication skills allowed him to succeed also in the organisational field. In 2016, he was elected as Director of the Institute of Administrative Sciences at the University of Wrocław, and in 2018 he simultaneously took up the position of Head of the Department of Public economic law. Moreover, from 2010 to 2020 he headed the Department of Economic Law at Wroclaw University of Economics and Business. He is one of the founders and a member of the governing bodies of Stowarzyszenie Absolwentów Wydziału Prawa, Administracji i Ekonomii Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego „UNIWER§YTECKA”. The area of organisational activity in which Professor Tadeusz Kocowski shows particular commitment is the University of Wrocław’s cooperation with the State Fire Service. As part of this cooperation, Professor Kocowski participated in preparing acts related to public safety and the operation of the fire service – namely, Act of 24 August 1991 on fire protection, Act of 24 August 1991 on the State Fire Service and Act of 17 December 2021 on voluntary fire brigades. In recognition of prof. Tadeusz Kocowski’s competence and experience, the Rector of the University of Wrocław appointed him chair of the Interdisciplinary Research Team, whose task is to prepare a coherent security system based on the structure of public administration. Participants in the team’s work include representatives of the State Fire Service, the Local government of the Lower Silesian Province – Marshal’s Office of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship and Wroclaw Medical University.

Translated by Darya Tserashkevich (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.

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