THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF CIVIL DEFENSE - CURRENT STATE AND DIRECTIONS FOR PERFECTION

Abstract

The article presents legal and organizational issues related to the functional and institutional enterprises of the Civil Defense in the Republic of Poland. It was assumed that the article will be based on common knowledge from widely available studies covering the last thirty years, which means it was obtained from literature written after the political changes in Poland. The second assumption was to use the provisions of generally applicable law, both Polish and laws ratified by the Republic of Poland. Valuable sources of information subjected to analysis were also the few scientific papers released in Polish academic centers and studies prepared for the needs of the National Headquarters of the State Fire Department Service in Warsaw. The article was divided into three parts. They include: introduction, methodological assumptions, subject-and-object scope of civil defense and summary that point the direction of necessary projects aimed at improving civil defense. The article focuses on the diagnosis of the condition of applied solutions with a precise definition of the purpose, duties, tasks and powers of the authorities competent in civil defense matters. This work presents the results of an analysis of bibliographic sources, which, according to the authors' statements, was considered the most appropriate due to the adopted methodological assumptions, mainly in the scope of the adopted objective and research problem. The conducted analysis proves that the Civil Defense organization functioning in its present form for almost twenty years needs improvement. Its purpose, tasks and structure do not require changes. However, the system of directing and supervising civil defense formations calls for a different look. Changes are also necessary in terms of functional and institutional links with other state entities responsible for general security. The authors of the article put forward directions for improving the functioning of civil defense, by better adapting to the law in force in Poland regulating the issues concerning following systems: crisis management, state emergency medical services and emergency alerting. The results of the conducted research indicate, on the one hand, the need to rationalize civil defense but without the need to amend the provisions relating to the issues of conducting rescue operations.