Walerian Sanetra , was born on the 13th of December 1943 in Żywiec, in the South of Poland. 
Up until completing his university studies he lived in Złoty Stok. He attended high-school in Paczków. From 1961 to 1966 he studied at the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Wrocław and since 1967 - after finishing a year long preparatory junior assistant teacher's course - he started work at this University. In 1970 he obtained a PhD in law (the doctoral thesis was entitled: Personnel risk of an enterprise, Warsaw 1971, it was chosen as the best law PhD thesis in the Państwo i Prawo law monthly competition for the best PhD thesis in law) and in 1975 he was awarded a doctor habilitaded's degree (on the basis of a habilitation thesis entitled: Fault as an element of employee liability, Warszawa-Wrocław 1975).
He was a member of the government Committee for the Evaluation of the Labour Law Act Draft (1973), and (up to the present) a member of the Committee for the Codification of Labour Law and the Committee for the Reform of Labour Law (between 1988-1989 he was a member of the Board of this Committee).
He is a member of the Board of Editors of many legal periodicals (University of Wrocław Press, Nowator, Prawo Pracy (Labour Law), Praca i Zabezpieczenie Społeczne (Labour and Social Insurance), Orzecznictwo Sądów Polskich (Polish Courts' Judgements Digest))
Since the second half of the seventies he is a member of the International Association of Labour Law and Social Insurance (he was the author of three papers prepared for conferences organized by the Association). He is a member of the Board of the Polish Section of the Association. 
In the second half of the eighties he was a member of the Prime Minister's Legislative Council. During that period he was also a lecturer at the University of Szczecin.
In 1975 he was a trainee at Paris II University and then for a couple of years he participated in international comparative legal research. Civil Service in Eastern and Western European States - book published in Paris, was the effect of this research. 
In the eighties he was a coordinator of academic cooperation between the University of [...] and the universities of Louvin le Neuve, Prague and Brno. Various academic conferences and publications were a result of this cooperation.
In he was 1984 he was appointed extraordinary professor at the University of Wrocław. Since 1994 he is the holder of the title of Professor Ordinary. From 1978 to 1980 he was Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Wrocław, and in the years 1982-1984 he was Vice-Rector of the University.
He participated as a government representative in the historical Round Table negotiations (1989) that led to democracy - he was a member of the Sub-Committee for Trade Union Affairs.
Prof. Sanetra is an expert on labour, social insurance and innovation/patent law. He was (in the second half of the seventies) the founder and organizer of the Postgraduate Course in Employee Patent Law at Wrocław University which he presided over for a couple of years. 
He has authored circa 290 publications of a various character (academic publications, legal commentary, reviews, non-academic legal publications).
Since the 1st of October 1994 he is a professor at the University of Białystok and Head of the Labour Law Department of this university.
Beginning with July 1st 1990 he is Supreme Court justice (Administrative, Labour and Social Insurance Law Chamber). He is also a member of the Appeals Committee of the Polish Patent Office.
He has a son (a law graduate) and a granddaughter.
Hobbies: professional work, sport, dance.

Main books authored or co-authored by professor Walerian Sanetra:
Responsibility in Labour Law. Definition, Scope, Differentiation. Wrocław 1991; Labour Law. Elementary lecture. V. 1, Białystok 1994; Poland's Rules of Expatriate Employment. Warszawa 1993; Labour Law Application Problems in Industrial Enterprises. Wrocław 1976 (co-authored); Labour Regulations and Other Internal Rules in Large Enterprises. Wrocław 1976 (co-authored, ed.); Personnel Self-Government in State-Owned Enterprises. Wrocław 1983 (co-authored, ed.); Social Labour Inspection (an Element of the Work-Conditions Supervision System). Wrocław 1985 (co-authored, ed.); Employment and Unemployment. Digest of Law and Commentary. Warszawa 1993; Labour Law Code, Commentary. Warszawa 1996 (2nd ed., co-authored); co-author of articles published in the Karpacz Winter Labour Law School series; Labour Law - Recent Problems. Białystok 1999 (co-author, ed.); Employment in the Civil Service and Local Self-Government. Białystok 2001 (co-author, ed.).