Dorota Malec

The 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of 17 March 1921 calls for reflection on its content as well as its practical application. Being the first constitution after Poland's partitions, it was unanimously passed on March 17, 1921, as a result of a political compromise between the parties present in the Legislative Sejm. In the judicial field, it contained detailed guidelines for future courts, laying down the principles of the new organization of the judiciary system in Poland. The Law on the System of Common Courts, issued in 1928 by the ordinance of the President of the Republic of Poland, entered into force on January 1, 1929, thus in different conditions and political form, after the May coup and the amendment of the March Constitution in 1926, when many of its principles were criticized by the ruling government group. As a result, not all principles set out in Chapter IV The Court were implemented in practice (e.g. the introduction of courts of peace and jury was abandoned, the basic principles of independence and irremovability of judges were subject to limitations, e.g. by their suspension during the reorganization of the judiciary related to the implementation of the new The Law on the System of Common Courts. From the battle of the legislature (supporting in 1928 the expectations of the court circles) the latter emerged victorious, what was proved by the staff changes, motivated in the case of the Supreme Court by political reasons (including the retirement of the First President of the Supreme Court, W. Seyda) and the President of the Criminal Chamber of Supreme Court A. Mogilnicki), as well as subsequent amendments to the The Law on the System of Common Courts, departing more and more clearly from the principles expressed in the March Constitution.

Wincenty Szpor (1796–1856) was a Cracow advocate and the Senator of the Free City of Cracow in the years 1848–1850. Likewise, he lectured on political skills and statistics at the Law Faculty of the Jagiellonian University. In the years 1827, 1830, 1834, 1847 he repeatedly entered the competition for the Heard of the Chair of Political Skills. On the successive competitions he unsuccessfully rivalled with Ferdynand Kojsiewicz. As a result it was only after the Kojsiewicz’s death that he arrived at the position of the deputy professor. After 1848, due to political reasons, the Austrian authorities did not agree to stabilize his position. It was in 1828 that W. Szpor, while fulfilling the competition requirements for the Chair, submitted to the Commission his ample program of the lecture on political skills. The program suggested by Szpor was well prepared and clear in its form and contents. It was based rather on the assumptions of the Enlightenment era and only to a slight extent it drew upon the assumptions of the spontaneously developing administrative sciences. Therefore in such form the lecture doubtless fell short of the expectations of the mid‐19th century which was the time when Szpor eventually started his much desired academic career. That way or another, Szpor’s program – particu‐ larly when viewed from the perspective of the programs prepared at similar time by M. Hoszowski,F. Kojsiewicz and P. Bartynowski – makes up an interesting document illustrative of the history of the world  of  learning and  instruction in  law.  It is also illustrative of the situation of administrative sciences in the first part of the 19th century.