If we understand constitutionalism as the recognition that power worthy of the name must be limited by supra-cultural values independent of it, the existence of which is confirmed more by faith than by experience, then constitutionalism is coessential with democracy – assuming that the concept means a system where authority is limited by human rights, as defined in a dialogue between majorities and minorities. Constitutionalism, in the sense postulated here, determines the democratic state’s identity, which consists not only in separating the majority from the subordinate minority, but also in respect for the values that give meaning to humanity.

The article’s research aims to answer whether constitutional identity (as well as numerous doctrinal studies concerning constitutional identity) may substantially help solve problems regarding the relationship between European law and national law. The article discusses the hypothesis that the identity and the studies multiply doubts and uncertainty rather than answer the pragmatic questions in constitutional law. The author deals with identity as a social construct and convention created by academics and constitutional courts. Identity belongs primarily to the dictionary of academic language. It is rarely used in normative acts, in particular in constitutional provisions. The constitutional identity seems to be also vague and controversial for the author. Nevertheless, studies on identity may – as the article suggests – realise at least one (constitutionally important) aim. It is a better self-consciousness of constitutional law scholars, which may help them – at the end of the day – to discuss the relationship between European law and national law in more and more precise terms.

The article discusses the statutory procedure for adopting resolutions of the Sejm on declaring a given year a year of a person or event (the so-called anniversary resolutions) and the practice of working on them in the Committee on Culture and Media of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland. Frequent changes in regulations and the increasing number of patrons are criticized, and above all, the inappropriate role of the Committee’s presidium, which often does not submit all drafts of resolutions which are addressed for its consideration. Weaknesses during the work on the so-called anniversary resolutions in 2023 resulted in another amendment to the Rules of Procedure of the Sejm relating to it.

This paper will analyze the scope of what the United States legal system as well as their international counterparts recognize and therefore, define as religion (part 2), to develop an argument supporting the potential need for limitations on unorthodox religions in the modern era (part 3) as exemplified in the instances of the following: the practice of LaVeyan Satanism, Scientology, and Pastafarianism (part 4). For the purposes of specificity, the following analysis will focus on the United States government and federal courts’ opinions regarding the topic at hand.

The text aims at reconstructing the structure of the arguments of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal in the judgment of 22 October 2020, in which the so-called eugenic grounds for termination of pregnancy were held unconstitutional. The assumption of the presented considerations is the recognition that this judgment amounts to be a possible and natural development of jurisprudence regarding the disputed constitutional issue. The authors argue that the essential structural elements of the Tribunal’s reasoning (i.e. its two-stage nature consisting in examining the constitutional subjectivity of the nasciturus and carrying out the proportionality test) do not raise objections in the light of the method of resolving the constitutional problem adopted by the Constitutional Tribunal. In turn, the partial conclusions of these argumentation stages (i.e. recognition of the subjectivity of the nasciturus on the basis of Article 38 of the Constitution regulating the legal protection of life, as well as the recognition that the challenged regulation does not meet the proportionality test) are based on the existing doctrinal stipulations, and even more so on the existing jurisprudence of the Tribunal. The judgment is largely of an application nature in relation to the fundamental findings of the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling of 28 May 1997, but these findings are embedded in other constitutional categories: the life of a nasciturus is not only recognized as a “constitutional value” detached from the subject, but as a good an entity who entitled to the constitutional right to legal protection of life. In turn, the decisions of the ordinary legislator as to the intensity and type of this protection must meet the requirements of proportionality test, taking into account the constitutional importance of the right to legal protection of life and its close connection with the protection of human dignity.

The subject of the analysis carried out in the article is the content of the amendment of 2021 to the Code of Administrative Procedure, in particular its transitional provisions, according to which proceedings for annulment of administrative decisions older than 30 years are discontinued by operation of law. Arguments are presented indicating that the interpretation of this provisions, which means that it is impossible not only to annul the decision, but also to state that a defective decision is unlawful, leads to a violation of the Constitution. Such a solution makes it impossible to obtain a preliminary finding for the purposes of compensation proceedings and blocks an access to claim damages from the state – which leads to an infringement of the absolute prohibition under Article 77 (2) of the Constitution. This applies in particular to reprivatisation proceedings conducted in good faith for many years. However, in the article, the possibilities of maintaining the state of compliance with the Constitution through the appropriate interpretation of the transitional provisions of the amendment are indicated and discussed.

The commentary contains a criticism of the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court, in which the problem of the constitutionality of limitations on the openness of administrative court proceedings in proceedings before the Provincial Administrative Court has been reduced to linking the statutory limitation with the constitutional value enabling such a limitation. The Supreme Administrative Court did not conduct a proportionality test. Carrying it out and taking into account the normative and factual context, would imply a statement that the restrictions at the time of issuing the challenged judgement of the Provincial Administrative Court were not even useful for a specific purpose. They also did not meet the criteria of necessity and proportionality in the strict sense.

Judgment of the Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights of 14 March 2023 in the case of Georgiou v. Greece, Application No. 57378/18

In March 2023, the European Court of Human Rights issued a judgment concerning the former President of the Greek Statistical Office. The case was described as a test of the Greek justice system, and the issue at stake was the reliability of published statistics relating to the functioning of both the national and the Community economy. Andreas Georgiou was President of ELSTAT, the Greek equivalent of the Polish Central Statistical Office, from 2010 to 2015. In its first year of office, it provided the European Statistical Office with statistics relating to the budget deficit in Greece for 2009. According to Greek law, the competence to make statistics public rested with the Executive Board of ELSTAT, not with the President himself. The Greek authorities accused him of having committed the offence of abuse of power. Georgiou, on the other hand, claimed that he had acted in accordance with the principles of the European Statistical Code of Practice. It provides that the heads of statistical offices are solely responsible for decisions on the content and timing of the publication of statistical information. The defendant faced up to 10 years in prison. The Court of First Instance found Georgiou not guilty. However, the court of second instance sentenced him to two years imprisonment. The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal without, however, referring to the defendant’s objections relating to the need to refer a question to the Court of Justice of the EU for a preliminary ruling. Before the sentence came into force, Georgiou left for the United States. In the present judgment, the ECtHR found a violation of the Convention. The judgment is expected to restore confidence in Greek statistics and demonstrate the independence of the statistical office from pressure from the authorities.