Presidential election 2025. Can you vote on sick leave – voting for L4

This Sunday, the second round of presidential elections will take place. Many people wonder if they can take part in voting while on sick leave. We explain.

On June 1, Poles will choose a new president for the next five years. Many voters staying on sick leavewonders if he can go to the polling station, without losing his salary or benefit.

Presidential election. Voting for L4

The Act on cash benefits from social insurance in the event of illness and motherhood says that during the period of sick leave, you should refrain from gainful work, because otherwise you may lose the right to sickness benefit. The loss of the allowance may also contribute to “using the exemption from work in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of this exemption.”

When issuing a exemption, a doctor can spend it with the code “can walk” or “must lie”. In the case of sick leave with the code “can go” on L4, they can, for example, go for a walk or to the store, and therefore the issue of participation in the election does not raise any doubts. In the case of the “” must lie “code, it is worth consulting a doctor, primarily because of your health.

On the occasion of the topic of participation in elections during a sick leave, it is worth recalling the position of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of 2015, in which it was indicated that a person on L4 may be a member of the election commission. Such activity, as stated, is not a paid work. Meaning that According to experts, voting alone should not be considered as use sick leave in a manner inconsistent with its purpose.

– L4 is a certificate that indicates the inability to work. Going to the election, as a rule, is not a job – noted in an interview with tvn24.pl in 2023 a legal councilor specializing in matters of civil and medical law Aleksandra Wadierż. – Elections are our civic law. Other regulations should not forbid us to participate in this feast of democracy – she assessed.

What is allowed on L4?

As a year ago he said in an interview with the business editors of TVN24.pl, the then spokesman Paweł Żebrowski, “The sick leave has a very simple construction. There are two options: the sick either must lie or can walk. You have to follow the doctor's recommendations. Therefore, we cannot treat sick leave as a vacation or as a vacation. “

Recently, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna wrotethat Polish courts recognize that using L4 contrary to its intended use is to perform unnecessary activities that make it difficult to treat or delay recovery during recovery. It is, for example, alcohol abuse, participation in a social event, playing machines, shopping in the gallery, hard work in the garden or on the economy. The patient can do ordinary everyday life in the apartment or go to the post office, for surgery, to the doctor, for a short walk and shopping.

Let us remind you that Social Insurance Institution He is statutory obliged to check sick leave. His employees check whether sick people use the time for recovery correctly. In 2024, ZUS inspected a total of 484.4 thousand. sick leave. The consequence of this was 36.6 thousand. challenged sickness benefits worth 52 million 953 thousand. zloty.