Wyłączenie pracownika organu w niemieckim postępowaniu administracyjnym

The aim of the paper is to perform a comparative legal analysis of the grounds for disqualification of an authority’s employee from participation in German administrative proceedings, procedures and effects thereof, as well as the consequences of violation of provisions concerning disqualification. The formal-dogmatic method is used (an analysis of the provisions regulating the subject matter) as well as the comparative legal method, consisting in comparing solutions adopted in various procedural contexts of a given branch of law and in different legal systems. The author also analyses judicial decisions of the German Federal Administrative Court and the relevant literature. The catalogue of relatives of an authority’s employee who cause his disqualification from participation in the proceedings to which they are parties corresponds to common sentiments better than the catalogue of such persons in the Polish administrative procedure. The issue of disqualification of an employee of an authority on account of his close relationship with a party to the proceedings is regulated by the German legislator, unlike in Poland, in a manner consistent with other situations in which the range of persons belonging to the immediate family (closest relatives) is of legal relevance. The legal consequences of violating provisions on disqualification of an authority’s employee, adopted by the German legislator, fall between two extreme solutions encountered in the legal orders or judicial practice of the European Union Member States.