Maria Kruk
Przegląd Konstytucyjny, Numer 2 (2020), 2020, s. 40 - 67
Whether the Polish Constitution of 1997 could have been better?
Considerations on whether the Polish Constitution of 1997 could have been better were inspired by the constitutional practice of more than 20 years of its validity, and especially the last years, when a homogeneous and hegemonic parliamentary majority is increasingly making all state bodies and institutions dependent on a political party, leading slowly to the weakening of the rule of law, denying the division of power, and appropriating the judiciary in such a way that there is already more and more talk of a departure from the standards of a democratic system. But what?s worse ? to ridicule democracy by introducing the chaos that has recently taken place in connection with the election of the President of the Republic of Poland. The article analyses this practice, asking whether the principles of the Constitution could have been formulated in such a way as to prevent or at least hinder such undemocratic practice. But what is more, does it provide for sufficient control mechanisms and instruments capable of enforcing accountability? Although the article recognizes a number of weaknesses in the Constitution, when confronted with its application, the author leads to the conclusion that if it were not for the violation of the Constitution, its false interpretation and the ignoring of its principles, i.e. if it were observed, it could successfully serve as the foundation of a democratic state.