The Principle of Equality before the Law vis-a-vis Social Exclusion

Abstract

The aim of this study, whose material scope will be determined by the Polish (constitutional), international (human rights-related) and EU legal order, is to refer the principle of equality before the law to the subject matter of social exclusion. The doubt whether this principle provides a normative anchoring for the protection of an individual against social exclusion and to what extent from the perspective of efficiency of this protection a possible reference to the principle of equality before the law is sufficient has been placed in the framework of a research hypothesis. It is because if we recognize, de lege lata, that the formulation (identification) of the right to protection against social exclusion is premature, we must ask a question about programme guarantees of protection against exclusion, and in consequence, whether the principle of equality before the law plays the function of such a guarantor. The settlement of this question was made the research purpose of this study and the author uses the analytical method and the method of interpretation of the law in force in the course of her research.