Robert Jastrzębski

Implementation of the Provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 17 March 1921 Concerning the Administration of Justice

The article – divided into four sections – is centered around the implementation of the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 17 March 1921 in the area of the administration of justice. The first section discusses the work on a draft constitution carried out between 1917 and 1921, with particular focus on the judiciary. The second analyses the content of the provisions of the Constitution referring to the administration of justice. The third deals with the judicature. In this section, the author discusses the organisation and work of, among others: the State Tribunal, the Supreme Administrative Tribunal, the Competence Tribunal, and courts of common pleas, paying particular attention to the unimplemented norms of the Constitution – mainly the failure to establish administrative courts of different instances with the participation of citizens, and the absence of citizens serving as justices of the peace or jurors. Two issues played important roles in the implementation of constitutional norms regarding the administration of justice. The first was the political situation in Poland after the 1926 May Coup. The second was the amendments to the Constitution introduced in connection with the entry into force of the 1926 “August Amendment”, that gave the President of the Republic of Poland the power to promulgate ordinances having the legal effect of legislative acts. This allowed the Polish government of that time to carry out, to a great extent, a standardisation of the courts of common pleas, which was accomplished by promulgation of the Ordinance of the President of the Republic of Poland of 6 February 1928 – the Act on the Organisation of Courts of Common Pleas. Additionally, between 1929 and 1932 the government embarked on an extensive program of dismissing existing judges and appointing new ones. Importantly, this was accompanied by a change in the line of jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Tribunal, according to which courts lost their authority to examine the constitutionality of ordinances promulgated by the President of the Republic of Poland. In the final section of the article – the summary – the author notes that the implementation of the norms of the Constitution concerning the administration of justice was, to a great extent, non-existent, given the political situation after the May Coup. It further points out that the same was also true in the period between 1944 and 1952, during which the basic principles of the Constitution of 17 March 1921 applied.

* Artykuł stanowi rozszerzoną wersję wystąpienia autora na konferencji pt. „Tradycje ustrojowe II Rzeczypospolitej. W stulecie Konstytucji marcowej”, która odbyła się w dniach 5–6 października 2021 r. Konferencję zorganizował Wydział Prawa i Administracji Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w Krakowie.

Remarks on Piotr Zbigniew Pomianowski’s The Beginnings of Polish Legal Literature. The First Seria of “Themis Polska”, Warsaw 2015, 279 pp.

The article is a review of a book which is dedicated to Themis Polska – a Polish periodical that appeared in the years 1829–1830. The book being reviewed is the published version of a doctoral thesis defended at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw in 2012. The author of the review conducted a meticulous and critical discussion of chapters of the book. In the summary he concluded that the work is a discussion of the content of the journal and a compilation of the views of its authors. In addition, the reviewer poses a rhetorical question about the scientific usefulness of this kind of works, in particular as regards their financing from public funds.  

Using Sources of Law for the Purpose of Historical Interpretation

This article pertains to the use of relevant sources of law for the purpose of historical interpretation. The article is divided into three sections. The first section is dedicated to theoretical issues and presents the concept of sources of law and the types of legal interpretation, in particular historical interpretation. The next section describes examples of how sources of law may be applied in conjunction with historical interpretation. It discusses, inter alia, the application of historical interpretation in court rulings, the functioning of joint land property, agricultural reform in Poland after the Second World War, the consequences of the inflation policy and the associated occurrence of what is referred to as mortgage discharge, i.e. the repayment of the amounts due by the mortgagors. In the last section of the publication, the author summarises his reflections focusing primarily on the meaning of sources of law in the context of applying historical interpretation in contemporary court rulings. The author’s final conclusion is that using the sources of old law and the interpretation thereof are an important component of the legal system currently in effect.

*Artykuł jest zmienioną i rozszerzoną wersją referatu wygłoszonego na sympozjum pt. „Łączą nas źródła”, które zorganizował Wydział Prawa i Administracji Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w Krakowie w dniu 19 września 2019 r.