Polish Constitutional Tribunal

The article traces the trajectory of the struggle for woman's rights in Poland from 1989 to the present. It argues that the democratic transition successfully shaped the foundations of a liberal regime, but was accompanied from the outset by an agreement between the government and the Catholic Church that limited reproductive rights and led to a re-traditionalization of gender roles. This context is crucial to understanding the Constitutional Tribunal's interpretation of the constitution, which reinforced a kind of sexual contract, seeking to domesticate women. The change of government in 2015 significantly weakened guarantees of the rule of law and further curtailed reproductive rights, prompting mass protests and the mobilization of democratic opposition. This article posits that the overthrow of the illiberal regime in the recent parliamentary elections marks the beginning of a new social contract in Poland, in which woman's rights are taken seriously.

Purpose: The fundamental aim of this article is to verify an assumption according to which the proper Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) is a key factor in the rationality of law. Rational law is a law which is effective and able to realize and achieve social, economic and environmental aims determined and established by the lawmaker. Methodology: The scope of this paper-which determines its structure-encompasses the definition of RIA, including its specific (but non-legal) forms such as benchmarking and evaluation. As far as we are concerned, these methods can provide-as a kind of Regulatory Impact Assessment-a significant tool for measuring the rationality of regulations. Furthermore, the usefulness of benchmarking and evaluation has been recognised by representatives of jurisprudence. We will also explain the concept and the assumptions of the rationality of law on the grounds and in the light of the case law of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Administrative Court. This should allow to countercheck the main thesis of this paper. The methodology encompasses primary legal methods such as literature, case law and legislation analysis. Findings: An indispensable condition of the rationality of law is actual elimination of irrational regulations which were not subjected to the Regulatory Impact Assessment. Practical implications: Although RIA is a problematic issue (in terms of its practical application), it is necessary to carry it out in order to assure the rationality of law. A good and desirable complement to Regulatory Impact Assessment are non-legal methods such as benchmarking and evaluation. Originality: Originality and value of this survey lies in taking into account the case law of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Administrative Court. Additionally, this paper is original in that it considers non-legal methods in the examination of the rationality of law.

One of the unexpected effects of the constitutional crisis in Poland that began at the turn of 2015 is the expansion of diffuse constitutional review of statutes. The Polish Constitution adopts a centralised model of constitutional review, but in the cases they hear common courts still independently disapply statutes that violate constitutional norms. Their stated grounds for doing so focus on the need to act in the place of the Constitutional Tribunal, which has lost its independence from the political power, as well as the necessity of continued effective preservation of the Constitution’s primacy and of the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals. This article takes a more detailed look at this new judicial practice, describes the rationale for its adoption and analyses its consequences from the legal perspective. The trend is capable of being described in theoretical terms, which is the reason for this article’s research hypothesis that the courts’ activities are changing the law-in-action of constitutional review in Poland, as a consequence of the formulation and activation of a defensive mechanism for constitutional democracy.

The paper is dedicated to describing the way of reception by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of the "chilling effect", i.e. an institution related to such activities of public authorities that form an indirect act of deterrence regarding the execution of constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms, esp. the freedom of expression. The discussed concept has originated in judicial decisions of the US Supreme Court and has spread into many contemporary legal systems, including jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Although it is evident that the Tribunal "took over" that concept from the ECHR, it in fact developed its own, unfortunately internally inconsistent, understanding of the chilling effect. Four different ways of application of chilling effect may be noticed in judicial decisions of the Polish CT, while only two of them reflect the perception of this institution by the US Supreme Court and the ECHR.

A summary of the paper is published as "Reception of chilling effect by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal", Academia Letters 2021, Article 654

The Act of 4 April 2019 on amending the Act on Real Property Management added a provision temporarily limiting the possibility of demanding restitution of the expropriated property. On the basis of the new provision, the right of the previous owner or its legal successors to restitute the expropriated property has ceased to be of perpetual nature. This right may not be exercised, as it previously was the case, at any time, as it expires 20 years from the date on which the decision to expropriate became final. This solution should be assessed negatively, as it deepens the non-constitutional nature of the statutory mechanism of restitution of expropriated real property, which makes the demand for restitution dependent on whether the public objective has been assumed (i.e. started to be implemented). If this is the case, then, in the light of the Real Property Management Act of 1997, the restitution of real property can never be claimed, and therefore even if such an objective in the f...

The main aim of this paper is to present the specificity of functioning of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, the characteristics of one type of its judgments, i.e. verdicts with a “deferral clause” and preparation of the de lege lata and de lege ferenda postulates. Problems analyzed in this work remain valid in both jurisprudence and legal doctrine.

While memory laws emerged in the Western European context almost three decades ago, there has been a recent proliferation of memory laws in Central and Eastern Europe in the 2010s. This emerging body of law, contrary to its origins, appears to fortify a state-sanctioned victimhood and seeks to establish a preferable narrative of history in public memory through legal means. The outlook on WWII history and the dominance of Soviet communism is a central point of contestation as CEE states construct opposing historical narratives that implicate one another in the ongoing war for remembrance. In our contribution, we focus on three CEE states as country studies, covering memory laws in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as analysing their memory legislation in the context of memory wars. Our analysis subsequently highlights how ‘memory wars’ unfold as proxy wars for contemporary state identities. A quest for mnemonical security, states securitise the governance of memory which is hence excluded from public discourse and subjugated to restrictive permissible discourses and remembrance practices. These methods of mnemonic governance via militant memory laws thereby erode the foundational elements of liberal democracy, weaken constitutional orders as well as add fuel to nationalist tendencies, all of which have implications for democratic backsliding. Furthermore, our contribution demonstrates that memory laws in all three countries have been adopted as swords and shields amidst the mutual memory wars: (1) between Poland and Ukraine, on the one side, against Russia, on the other side, as well as (2) Poland and Ukraine between themselves, and (3) Russia and Ukraine between themselves. These diametrically opposed historical narratives, institutionalised through memory laws, thus have significant implications and can potentially deepen conflicts, historical feuds, and ethnic and national tensions.

Le droit administratif permet aux personnes publiques d’acquérir des biens publics. Selon que leurs biens servent ou non l’intérêt général, ils rentrent dans leurs domaines public ou privé. Les dépendances du domaine public sont soumises aux principes de la domanialité publique qui, parce qu’ils rendent ces dépendances inaliénables et imprescriptibles, constituent le cœur du droit administratif des biens. Le droit administratif des biens permet encore, dans des conditions dérogatoires au droit commun, la réalisation de travaux publics. Il s’agit, soit de réaliser des opérations matérielles de travaux publics, soit de construire des ouvrages publics.

Once subjugated the Constitutional Tribunal, the United Right coalition, in power in Poland since 2015, brings forward plans to assert control over Polish judiciary, including the Supreme Court. Considering the next year’s local elections, and the project of a new electoral code, the relevance of the judicial reform pushed through by the majority is unprecedented. Indeed, Poles who join the street protests against these changes are not naive : since the independence of the courts is the last guarantee of the electoral process, the democracy and the rule of law are at stake.

Après l’assujettissement du Tribunal constitutionnel, la Droite Unie, au pouvoir en Pologne depuis 2015, s’en prend aux tribunaux judiciaires et à la Cour suprême. A un an des élections locales, nouveau code électoral à la clé, l’enjeu de la réforme de la justice prônée par la majorité au pouvoir est de taille. Les Polonais sortis dans la rue pour s’y opposer ne s’y trompent pas : dans la mesure où l’indépendance du juge judiciaire demeure le dernier gage de la sincérité du processus électoral, il en va de la survie de l’Etat de droit démocratique.

Si les crises obligent à réagir, elles obligent aussi à réfléchir. Indépendamment de ses conséquences pratiques et immédiates, qui ne seront pas abordées ici, la crise constitutionnelle à laquelle nous assistons en Pologne inspire quelques réflexions théoriques, relatives à la nature de l’argument juridique. Révélant les limites de l’approche contentieuse du droit, le conflit opposant le Tribunal constitutionnel polonais à la majorité parlementaire dévoile, semble-t-il, les faiblesses de la doxa positiviste. En effet, alors même qu’ils échappent à la compétence des tribunaux polonais, les agissements du parti au pouvoir (« Droit et Justice ») n’ont pourtant pas échappé à la critique des milieux juridiques. En reprochant à la majorité actuelle les violations de la Constitution, les juristes ne peuvent pourtant pas recourir à des arguments conventionnels, comme la teneur des textes ou l’autorité de la chose jugée. Dans les circonstances exceptionnelles, qui sont celles d’une crise constitutionnelle majeure, les données « positivistes » ne suffisent pas : les textes sont muets et les tribunaux incompétents. Faut-il en déduire l’absence du droit en tant que tel, laissant le sort de la République aux mains des hommes politiques ? Telle n’est pas l’opinion de la majorité des juristes polonais...

The European Court of Justice ordered to suspend the propulsory retirement of the Polish Supreme Court judges. As Poles remain largely euro-enthusiasts, the government had no choice but to comply with the ruling, hoping not to lose the European Parliament elections in May 2019. Yet, the judges’ victory is only partial. The independence of the Polish judiciary has been seriously undermined by a set of controversial laws introduced since 2015.

Par ses ordonnances du 19 octobre et du 17 décembre 2018, la CJUE a suspendu le limogeage des juges de la Cour suprême de Pologne. Dans un pays qui demeure très largement euro-enthousiaste, le gouvernement a dû céder aux injonctions de la Cour de Luxembourg pour éviter la débâcle aux élections européennes prévues en 2019. La victoire des juges n’est pourtant que partielle. Depuis 2015, la justice polonaise a subi une série de « réformes » qui ont considérablement affaibli l’indépendance de la magistrature.

One of the politically momentous and legally precedential constitutional problems of recent years which had to be faced by the Polish constitutional court has been the dispute whether it is possible to exclude the applicable statute defining the organization and procedure of the CT proceedings as a basis for adjudication.
An analysis of the judgment of the Tribunal addressing that issue proves that the Polish constitutional court excluded the possibility that the same regulation could serve simultaneously as the object of control and the basis for control proceedings. This results from the essence of constitutional control of the law which in such arrangement of its key elements would simply repeal itself, i.e. would lead to its own invalidation. Subordination of constitutional judges exclusively to the Constitution extends to all actions they perform in serving their office and other consubstantial manifestations of exercising the power to judge. This is a derivative of jurisprudential responsibilities of the Tribunal, which include both passing a final judgment as to compliance of challenged statutes, as well as other acts of application of law.
Art. 195 (1) in fine of the Polish Constitution lays down a competence norm for a CT judge to refuse, in specific circumstances, to abide by the CT Act. One of the analytical assumptions is recognition of the finality of CT judgments. The possibility to exclude a provision of the CT Act is an action in the area of application of law. Determination of the legal framework for passing judgments has nothing in common with constitutional control of challenged statutes. Those actions derive from totally different orders and their goals are different.

The digital age has reconfigured the security services, especially the forms of mass surveillance aimed at preventing various threats to society. However, this scenario may become problematic from the perspective of protecting the freedom of the media and journalistic privilege. The author of this article offers an overview of the scope of the protection of the journalistic privilege pursuant to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as well as its management in Poland from the developments prepared by its Constitutional Court.

SUMARIO: Introducción. Significado y fundamento constitucional del derecho al secreto de las comunicaciones. I. Titularidad del derecho. II. Ámbito protegido. III. Las excepciones al ámbito constitucionalmente protegido: supuestos y requisitos para la interceptación legítima de las comunicaciones. 1. La previsión legal y sus requisitos. La interpretación del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos. 2. El fin legítimo. 3. La necesidad en una sociedad democrática. 4. La resolución judicial. Requisitos. Excepciones a la autorización judicial previa. IV. Efectos de la interceptación ilícita. V. Las garantías del derecho al secreto de las comunicaciones. VI. Jurisprudencia. VII. Bibliografía básica.