Abstract

Public administration authorities should make every effort to establish the material truth in administrative proceedings using all available evidence – both regulated and unregulated directly in the provisions of the Code of Administrative Procedure of 14 June 1960. One of the means of evidence normatively unreflected in the Code is an opinion of a scientific or research institute provided in a situation when an administrative case requires special (professional) information exceeding the average knowledge of an administrative authority. It seems that given the rapid technological progress as well as ever more substantively extensive regulations of administrative law the importance of such opinions provided in evidentiary proceedings by institutes specialized in specific fields will be gradually growing. That is why in a situation of an absence of relevant regulations with respect to general administrative proceedings it seems necessary to discuss basic aspects of such opinions as unnamed evidence and identify the related crucial issues arising in the practical application of administrative law. Having the above in mind, basing on the current judgments of administrative courts the article analyses the relation between opinions of scientific (research) institutes and expert opinions, provides a catalogue of structural elements of such opinions as well as presents such opinions in the context of the principle of free assessment of evidence and impartiality of proceedings. Moreover, it discusses the procedural rights of a party with regard to the opinions prepared by scientific and research institutes.