The Image of an Attorney as Illustrated in Works of Polish Poets and Political Writers in the 16th–17th Centuries 

The article presents the image of an attorney as characterized in Old Polish literature of the 16th and 17th centuries. It reflected, to some extent, the attitude of the people of the time (primarily the nobility) towards the legal profession. There is no doubt that Old Polish society’s perception of attorneys was unequivocally negative. They were portrayed as greedy, dishonest men, liars with no respect for the law, and even instigators of non-compliance with the law. Literary works and political writings broadly condemned such behaviors. However, this stereotype applied only to professional attorneys-at-law. By no means were non-professional agents (attorneys-in-fact) attacked, nor was the institution of the power of attorney itself criticized. It seems that this sort of critical attitude was not estate-based (lots of attorneys were noblemen), although it is possible that the low descent of lawyers influenced the virulence of the criticism. The paper attempts to answer the question as to what extent the literary image of an attorney corresponded to reality. It seems that the works comprised objective reflections on the legal profession and the emotional attitudes of individuals (including authors themselves) or social groups. It is noteworthy that these pieces of literature often regarded the entire Polish legal system of the time as dysfunctional. Nevertheless, the recurrence of motifs such as greediness or dishonesty gives reason to believe that at least some of these allegations were not unfounded. At the same time, it should be noted er corresponded with the stereotype present in European and non-European culture from antiquity to contemporary times.

* Artykuł został przygotowany na podstawie materiałów zgromadzonych i opracowanych podczas realizacji projektu „Starosta krakowski jako organ sądownictwa w pierwszej połowie XVII wieku” sfinansowanego przez Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego (obecnie Ministra Edukacji i Nauki) w ramach programu „Diamentowy Grant”, nr DI2013 000543.

The Central Liquidation Commission in the Duchy of Warsaw between 1808 and 1812

The subject of the analysis concerns one of the administrative-legal aspects related to military requisitions in the period of the Duchy of Warsaw, namely, the claims of the population resulting from unsatisfied dues for war requisitions and material losses in households which occurred as a result of military operations conducted on Polish soil in the early 19th century. In light of the regulations adopted by the authorities of the Duchy of Warsaw, these claims were to be settled in the manner indicated, while future public burdens were to be settled on the basis of the principle of equity in the form of co-equation, i.e. the equalisation of duties for the benefit of the army. The Central Liquidation Commission – the state body appointed to carry out the liquidation of claims – was established in 1808. Its main duty was to carry out activities such as the receipt, consideration, and determination of claims against the State Treasury.

Jan Kanty Rzesiński – Scholar of 19th Century Cracovian Roman Law and Legal History (Part I)

Jan Kanty Rzesiński was an active member of the Cracovian intellectual elite of the first half of the 19th century. However, his research activities, as well as his literary works, are mostly forgotten today. It is primarily a consequence of the fact that although Rzesiński many times sought employment at Jagiellonian University, he was finally hired as a professor there only in the last years of his life. Rzesiński’s academic career at first covered Roman law studies, but in its later stages he focused on the problems of Polish legal history, as well as the philosophy of law. In terms of the views presented, he can be labeled as one of the first Polish propagators of the Historical School of Jurisprudence. He was not, however, an uncritical apologist of the school, rather he was engaged in the discussion of its goals and methods of legal research. The article is divided into two parts. The first one covers Rzesiński’s academic curriculum vitae, as well as an analysis of his works related to Roman law: his doctoral the- sis regarding the calculation of interest in Roman law, his translation into Polish of Edward Gibbon’s Chapter 44 presenting the history of Roman law, as well as the translation of Eduard Gans’ work about Gaius’ Institutions. The second part of the article that will be published in the next issue of Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History (2023) concerns Rzesiński’s remaining literary activity, which was related to both law (the translation of Processus iuris civilis Cracoviensis, articles on the law of quartering in lieu of securing the creditors rights in the old Polish law, articles on language and jurisprudence, and articles on the relations between legal history and philosophy of law) and his views against the contemporary society and the Cracovian academic milieu.

Edmund Krzymuski’s Final Paper in the Work of the Section of Substantive Criminal Law of the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland – Selected Issues

The paper presents the course of the discussion of Edmund Krzymuski’s essay on crimes against life and health, which took place as part of the Section of Substantive Criminal Law of the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland in June 24–27, 1920. The article focuses on the main threads of the referent’s questionnaire and is devoted i.a., to the crimes of murder, bodily harm, incitement to suicide, or the killing of a fetus. The work highlights both Krzymuski’s proposals, as well as different concepts supported by other members of the Section, which were included in the draft criminal code of 1932. That discussion was significant because most of these solutions are still in force today in the Polish legal system. The article also attempts to answer whether the circumstances related to the referent’s proposals could have influenced his decision to resign from further work within the Substantive Criminal Law Section of the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland.

Rules of Criminal Court Record Archival Appraisal in the Provisions on the Court Records Storage and Disposal from 1937. On the Genesis and Results of Interwar Regulation on Determining the Value of the Polish Common Court Documentation

An article is devoted to what is a crucial problem for every historian of the 19th and 20th centuries – historical rules of archival appraisal, that is, the determination as to which records that were created for practical reasons and current activities of state institutions in the past, should be protected permanently because of their historical value. The author focuses on criminal court records in light of the Polish interwar rules enacted by the Justice Minister in 1937. The mentioned regulation was the first on an analyzed matter in Polish legal tradition. It set the essential criteria and mechanisms for court records archival appraisal, also adopted in later rules on this topic from 1975, 1989, and 2004 (the latest remains in force to the present). Beyond this the author tries to explain why, in 1937, the Polish Ministry established rules that intended to permanently protect only a few groups of criminal court records as being historically valuable. He mainly analyzes the primary regulation draft from January of 1937, which intended to cover more groups of criminal court records for permanent archival protection. The paper tries to establish the reasons as to why those propositions were rejected. In the end, the author purposes to set in motion a discussion of the consequences that resulted from rules adopted in 1937 for current legal-historical or historical-criminological research.

Lost Minutes of the Sittings of the Sub-commission on the Law on Kinship and Care Relationships of the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland in 1939 (Part III) 

When Poland regained independence in 1918, the different legal systems of the various partitioning states all remained in force on its territory. Drafts of uniform laws were to be drawn up by the Codification Commission established in 1919. One of its tasks was the preparation of a draft of the family and guardianship law. The sub-commission addressing this division of civil law worked until the outbreak of World War Two. The minutes of its sittings disappeared in September 1939 along with the total output of the Codification Commission. However, copies of minutes of the sittings of the subcommission held in 1939 were found in Kazimierz Przybyłowski’s collection of books donated to the Faculty of Law and Administration of University of Silesia in Katowice. These minutes shed new light on the final phase of the codification works. Publication of these documents will enable further detailed research on the history of family law in interwar Poland. The third part of the publication consists of minutes nos. 190–196.

* Artykuł został przygotowany w ramach projektu badawczego „Prawo własności w orzecznictwie sądów Wolnego Miasta Krakowa. Z dziejów stosowania Kodeksu Napoleona”, sfinansowanego przez Narodowe Centrum Nauki, nr umowy 2017/27/B/HS5/01308.