Operation of public authorities in the time of COVID-19 in Poland – principles of electronic communication with the party and participants to proceedings from the perspective of the activity of the Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Program Abstract: On 14 March 2020 the state of epidemic threat was introduced in Poland applicable until 20 March 2020 when the state of epidemic was introduced in the territory of the Republic of Poland. The situation associated with the growing number of SARS-CoV-2 infections forced ongoing monitoring of the epidemic situation, which entailed an introduction of a number of restrictions and solutions intended to isolate the infected persons on the one hand, and to minimize the risk of development of an epidemic in Poland on the other. Activity of the Polish

On 14 March 2020 the state of epidemic threat was introduced in Poland applicable until 20 March 2020 when the state of epidemic was introduced in the territory of the Republic of Poland. The situation associated with the growing number of SARS-CoV-2 infections forced ongoing monitoring of the epidemic situation, which entailed an introduction of a number of restrictions and solutions intended to isolate the infected persons on the one hand, and to minimize the risk of development of an epidemic in Poland on the other. Activity of the Polish legislator is also essential, which tried to introduce solutions that would correspond with current expectations and needs. In this paper, the author points to the issues of communication with a public authority by specific reflections on the principles of serving documents on beneficiaries of EU programs under which they were awarded funding for their implementation. The author points to the dynamics of the legislator’s work in this respect by analyzing the rules for serving documents by a public authority on beneficiaries who are public entities and those who are not.


Introductory issues
The situation associated with an epidemic threat caused by SARS-CoV-2 has affected almost all spheres of every-day functioning due to its global character. This also applies to the operation of public authorities, which are in this time obliged under the provisions of applicable law (including the Constitution of Poland) to act with regard to matters (not only administrative) entrusted in them, including maintaining continuity (Karciarz, 2020, Lex/el). The threat concerning the development of the epidemic escalated in Poland in the first half of March 2020.
A growing number of infections, as well as deaths, triggered anxiety manifested i.a. in the Polish government's taking a decision on specific isolation of society, which also involved laying down numerous rules that intended to ensure safety and to minimize the possibility of the spread of infections. Undoubtedly, the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is a serious challenge for all societies. In order to stop the spread of the virus, governments of many countries have adopted policies intended to regulate human behavior and their social habits. In particular, citizens throughout the world are strongly encouraged to get involved in the so-called 'social distancing' (Pedersen M. J., Favero N., 2020, p. 1). This term is also known in international literature as 'physical distancing' (Briscese et al., 2020;Merelli 2020, Paun et al. 2020). It is indisputable that activities that aim to create new unknown rules of functioning in society were not sufficient. As a consequence, it became necessary for the legislator to respond to the transformations on an on-ongoing basis, which was to prevent a state of affairs in which perspective. From the point of view of this study the scope of freedom of a public authority in contact with entities participating in the implementation of these programs, which was moved to virtual space, is especially important. In accordance with applicable laws, the coordination of implementation of operational programs in Poland is the responsibility of the minister competent for regional development who performs the tasks of a Member State. In turn, their implementation, including preparation of draft development strategies of a voivodship (regional level of local government) and of other development strategies, regional operation programs, programs that serve the implementation of partnership agreements for a cohesion policy and their execution lies with the governing body of a given voivodship (called the managing authority of the regional operational programhereinafter: the managing authority) 1 . Persons seeking financial support for projects carried out under a given Project Priority Axis, described in detail in an application for funding for project implementation, found themselves in a rather negative position due to the epidemic situation. The implementation of provisions included in a project financing agreement made with a governing body of a given voivodship was often problematic, which is naturally associated with obstacles that have their source both in terms of moving on to subsequent stages of project implementation (e.g. due to an absence of real possibilities of undertaking activities aiming to file a final application for payment) and in pending administrative proceedings, e.g. for returning awarded funds.
Conducing administrative proceedings in the time of a coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic causes a lot of problems which all public authorities who apply the provisions of the Code of administrative procedure and their employees must face. A lot of authorities are not only tackling staff shortages (caused either by sickness or the need to look after their children while schools are closed) but also need to limit, if not completely then at least to the minimum, contact in the authority (authority employee) -party of administrative proceedings relation (Karciarz, 2020, Lex/el). The aim of this paper is to point out practical problems concerning the rules of The issue that has triggered most doubts since the first days after the announcement of the state of epidemic threat in Poland and then the state of epidemic included the way in which beneficiaries can submit electronic documents to the authority in order for this action to be effective in administrative proceedings conducted by the managing authority. It was doubtful whether in pending administrative proceedings in which that far the authority had not served documents to the public entity's electronic mailbox (ePUAP), but had been doing so in a traditional manner (through the Polish postal operator), the beneficiary should be informed (and how) on the change of the manner of serving documents (which now were to be served with the use of ePUAP). For this reason, as regards communication with public entities, the issue that had to be settled was whether the managing authority may oblige the party initiating the proceedings (e.g. in the event of filing an application for a case to be re-examined or for granting a relief) in a traditional form to submit documents electronically. The next area of doubts where the beneficiary does not have the possibility to verify its authenticity because they do not have relevant software. The said doubts serve as an example. Their source was the managing authority's striving to encourage beneficiaries to submit correspondence through the ePUAP platform or to contact the authority by means of electronic mail, as well as to enhance the possibility of using such communication channels in pending administrative proceedings. Due to absence of guidelines in this area these doubts intensified in the first days after the announcement of the state of epidemic threat and then epidemic, which is extremely crucial given the broad scale of using EU funds.

The authority's electronic communication with parties to the proceedings
The requirements for serving documents electronically were formulated by the legislator in The requirement of signing an official confirmation of receipt 'as specified' means the requirement of placing a qualified electronic signature or a signature confirmed be the ePUAP trusted profile. If the document has not been received in electronic form as specified in § 4 subsection 3, the public administration authority shall, after 7 days of the day when the notice was sent, send another notice to enable the receipt of the document, where it needs to be borne in mind that such a notice may be automatically created and sent by the authority's ICT system and receipt of this notice is not confirmed. According to Article 46 § 6, if the document has not been received, service shall be deemed effective upon the expiry of 14 days of the date when the first notice was sent. If a document in the electronic form prescribed has been deemed collected, the public administration authority is obliged to allow the addressee to access the following in the ICT system of the authority: 1) the electronic document for a period of at least 3 months of the date when the electronic document was deemed collected; 2) information regarding the date when the document was deemed collected; and 3) information on dates when notices specified in § 4 and 5 were sent.
If a party to the proceedings or another participant in the proceedings is a public entity which is obligated to provide and maintain an electronic registry box service shall be made via the electronic registry box of such entity and the provisions of the aforementioned Article 39 1 CAP do not apply. into account the fact that the consent for electronic service may be given at any stage of pending proceedings, it is impossible to restrict the right to submitting such a declaration with a time limit. As has been pointed out, where the summoned participant to the proceedings remains silent, as well as in the event of an express refusal, it will be reasonable to serve a pleading (i.e. document in a paper form) in a manner and according to rules laid down in Article 39 CAP.

Rules for serving documents on non-public entities
Having regard to Article 8 CAP, the authority is obliged to instruct the participant about what shall be understood as means of electronic communication in order not to give him a wrong impression that communication e.g. by sending an email to the authority with scanned documents attached will be effective. In the light of applicable laws one cannot assume that sending a scan of a signed document means that rules on electronic service referred to in Article 39 1 CAP have been met. A scan must be identified with an electronic copy of a paper document, whereas applicable laws do not provide for the possibility to authenticate such a copy by a public authority. Without a doubt, when a scanned document is sent through, in principle it will not have a secure electronic signature or a signature placed by hand, which is contrary to electronic service discussed in Article 39 1 CAP.
Article 14 CAP is essential for this analysis, because its wording clearly shows that the authority's correspondence with parties to administrative proceedings does not have to proceed as traditional written correspondence. This provision makes it possible to handle administrative matters not only in a traditional written form or in an electronic form which is its equivalent value, but also in other less formalized ways. This provision lays down that matters may be

Rules for serving documents electronically on public entities
The legislator introduced a general obligation to use the measure of electronic service via an Where previous correspondence with a public entity has been done in the traditional form, i.e.
service to the electronic registry box has not been employed, these actions naturally remain in force and are effective. However, it needs to be postulated, especially given the drafted amendments which will be addressed in the last part of the study, that public entities should carry out contact with the authority using the ERB. 9). The possibility of serving print-outs concerns situations in which both the party, by its action, and the authority did not strive to be able to implement electronic service under Article 39 1 CAP. The discussed regulation will apply also in the case of service to public entities, though in these cases the rule should be serving to the electronic registry box, pursuant to Article 39 2 CAP. In any case, a print-out of a document should be proof to what has been stated in the document issued in the electronic form.

Summary
Technology is crucial for the protection of the community, which involves the fact that digital tools must ensure protection of citizens and must serve to level out social and economic divisions and to promote necessary transformations that aim to implement the set objectives.
Moreover, local and regional authorities, when creating new legislative solutions, must act in a way that prevents potential digital exclusion, as a result of which unequal treatment of citizens might take place. In order to bring local administration and public services closer to the citizens, CAP or 81a CAP, documentation aiming to eliminate the possibility of abolishing the presumption of effective service should be produced extremely carefully. One needs to remember that not each beneficiary uses Outlook, which makes it impossible to assume unequivocally that the function of read receipt will be sufficient to assume efficiency of service.
Naturally, as much as functionality of a given electronic mail allows such a formula, it is an additional aspect which determines minimization of the risk of abolishing the presumption of effective service. One needs to approach this form of communication with great caution due to the administrative court's potential questioning of such a formula of serving the authority's correspondence. It seems that in such a case a system of serving documentation in a way that eliminates the likelihood of leaving given post 'without a response' (e.g. should a given employee of the authority be absent) should be created. For this reason, it is recommended that solutions guaranteeing and facilitating effective communication with the authority, regardless of unexpected situations or absence of an employee of the authority, be drafted.
Undoubtedly, the state of epidemic threat and the applicable state of epidemic enforce introduction of solutions that affect negatively the correctness of pending administrative proceedings as little as possible, which is evidenced by, for instance, the wording of Article