28 GORZELIK AND OTHERS v. POLAND JUDGMENT 2002. The 2002 National and Ethnic Minorities Bill, which was currently before Parliament, also contained a list of national and ethnic minorities in Poland. All those documents constituted bases for establishing the existence of national minorities, but none of them mentioned Silesians. 62. The Government further pointed out that, under both the 1993 Elections Act and the current 2001 Elections Act, there existed two other ways of recognising a “national minority” for the purposes of electoral law. First, a court dealing with an application for the registration of an association representing a national minority would examine whether it had the necessary attributes. Second, on receipt of a declaration under the 1993 Elections Act from an electoral committee of a registered organisation of a national minority, the State Electoral College was required to determine whether it had been submitted by a competent body and was supported by satisfactory evidence. 63. In conclusion, the Government considered that, although under Polish law there was no definition of “national minority” and no specific procedure for acquiring that status, the combination of the applicable rules had given the applicants sufficient guidance on conditions for recognition as a national minority and registration of an association of such a minority. (c) The Court's assessment (i) General principles 64. The Court reiterates that the expression “prescribed by law” requires firstly that the impugned measure should have a basis in domestic law. It also refers to the quality of the law in question, requiring that it be accessible to the persons concerned and formulated with sufficient precision to enable them – if need be, with appropriate advice – to foresee, to a degree that is reasonable in the circumstances, the consequences which a given action may entail and to regulate their conduct. However, it is a logical consequence of the principle that laws must be of general application that the wording of statutes is not always precise. The need to avoid excessive rigidity and to keep pace with changing circumstances means that many laws are inevitably couched in terms which, to a greater or lesser extent, are vague. The interpretation and application of such enactments depend on practice (see Rekvényi v. Hungary [GC], no. 25390/94, § 34, ECHR 1999-III, and, as a recent authority, Refah Partisi (the Welfare Party) and Others v. Turkey [GC], nos. 41340/98, 41342/98,41343/98 and 41344/98, § 57, ECHR 2003-II, with further references). 65. The scope of the notion of foreseeability depends to a considerable degree on the content of the instrument in question, the field it is designed to cover and the number and status of those to whom it is addressed.