Outline of the Concept of the Population Protection and Civil Defence System in the Context of Contemporary Statutory Regulations

Aim: Development of an outline of the concept of the civil protection and civil defence system in the context of modern statutory regulations, including selected elements such as: the general characteristics of the functioning of the civil protection system and its transformation into a civil defence system under martial law or a state of war, the entities and subsystems of the civil protection and civil defence system and the dependencies that exist between them, taking into account the administrative division of the country. Project and methods: The study formulated the following main research problem: what is the outline of the concept of civil protection and civil defence system in light of modern statutory regulations? The theoretical research methods used in the study were: analysis, abstraction, synthesis, comparison and inference. Results: In the presented concept, selected elements of the civil protection and civil defence system, the most important in the author's opinion, were taken into account. Two possible variants of the concept description were assumed. One directly derived from the provisions of the Act on Civil Protection and Civil Defence assuming that the system is based on civil protection bodies, entities and resources. The second option was presented according to the practice of civil protection operation, with the assumption that the system is based on three pillars, which are: public entities, nonprofit NGOs and private entities. In doing so, it was noted that issues related to the management and/or coordination of the activities carried out within the framework of civil protection should be located in public entities due to the executive apparatus that these entities have at their disposal, and executive issues among public entities and NGOs. Conclusions: This study should be continued in view of the following concerns: 1) the questionable legitimacy of using the phrase “system” in the context of civil protection due to the lack of dependencies and relationships that exist between all elements of the system; (2) no full authority as to the use of the statement that in wartime the civil protection system transforms into a civil defence system, since civil defence is not presented as a system, but only as a series of tasks; (3) insufficient differentiation between the categories of tasks performed by civil protection bodies and actors; 4) identification of possible problems related to the interchangeable use of the concepts of civil protection and crisis management in operational practice; 5) optional introduction of definitions of civil protection actors or expansion of their list considered.