The paper provides a brief outline of the major elements that made up the foundations for the political thought of Marquis D. A. F. de Sade. The author of the paper believes that these elements have not been sufficiently presented in the Polish historiography of political doctrines. The Marquis, being deeply anchored in the Enlightenment ideas and stylistics, was simultaneously the thinker who questioned a remarkable number of elements of these ideas. What he challenged were in particular: the previous descriptions of nature, natural state, location and status of the human being, social contract and the concept of State and law. By questioning these concepts he indirectly challenged also the major articles of the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. His political concepts are detectable in most of his literary production and therefore the author of the paper treats what is detectable as a certain whole which perhaps is not fully consistent of morality and law, both those of ancien régime as well as those promoted by too idealistic concepts of the pre-revolutionary era. An interesting example of the originality of his way of political thinking was his attempt to present to the reader the two extremely different socio-constitutional models – that of classical Utopia and that of Anti-utopia – as included in one literary production. The essay is concluded with a brief attempt at the summarizing and assessing of the discussed concepts as viewed against our present-day reception of de Sade’s production and his location in the history of political thought.

The paper is concerned with the analysis of certain constitutional and legal issues in the history of the Free City of Cracow. When explored, these issues might (at least partly) support the idea that the agencies of the City functioned along the lines which were characteristics of the Rechtsstaat. What was emphasized was the fact that the legal norms binding in the Free City complied with the systemic hierarchical order and were subject to promulgation. What was also emphasized was the development of administrative law that was of two-sidedly binding force. The provisions of this law were binding not only on the citizens but also on the administrative agencies. The next thing testifying to the fact that priority was granted to law was the introduction of legal responsibility of the officials for the failure to fulfill their duties. It was also pointed out that in the Free City no external control of the administration was introduced, in particular there were no administrative court. Besides, the impact that the representatives of the protective empires had on the activities of the Free City authorities as well as the opportunism of the local political millieu, caused that the Free City could hardly be regarded as a State governed by the rule of law.

The paper discusses the political scene in the restless period of Springtime of Nations. The author analyses the distinctive features of the conservatives’ policy. Likewise he points to the experience that they obtained at the time. The policy that the conservative delegation of Lvov (composed inter alia of prince Leon Sapieha, Helcel and Maurycy Kraiński) tried to pursue in Vienna relied among others on such postulates as: autonomy of Galicia, rejection of slogans of Polish radicals who demanded that Austria should secure full liberty to Polish territories. Furthermore among their postulates there were: the necessity to punish those who were responsible for the slaughter of the Polish nobles at the time of peasant rising in 1846, replacement of the German officials by the Polish ones, convening the provincial Seym, establishing the Commission elected by the Galician estates with the task of organizing administration, judiciary, public education and provincial army. Finally they postulated the opening of the borders for the emigrants. The experience obtained by the conservatives during the Springtime of Nations had an impact on further policy pursued by the Conservatives. This policy was characterized inter alia by rejection of the federal project with the strong emphasis laid on the community of Slavs. This policy was also characterized by the Conservatives’ engagement in the institutional activities of the partitioning empires, negation of conspiracies, affirmation of legal activities, postulates of righteous solution of peasant question with due regard being made to the traditional paternalism of the nobiliary class.

The article deals with the impact of revolutionary movement of 1860-1881 on the judicial reform introduced by Russian Tsar Alexander II. The reform comprising the Law on Establishment of Courts, the Criminal Trial Act, the Civil Trial Act and the Law on Penalties Imposed by the Conciliation Courts,w was designed to eliminate the shortcomings of the disfunctional judicial system of the pre-reform period and allowed for the public control of the judicial decisions. By doing this, the reform opened the door to the needed changes in the Russian society that significantly lagged behind Western Europe. The measures taken against the revolutionary movement of the 1880s and the 1890s negatively affected the reform legislation and distorted many democratic institutions introduced by the judicial reform.

The paper is designed of deeply analyze the norms contained in the projects of property law of 1937 and 1939 as well as in the project of statute of 2000 on the amendments to the Polish Civil Code and the amendments to the following pieces of statutory law: on perpetual books and mortgage, on the code of civil procedure, on debentures and mortgage banks, on the law of notary’s offices and on presently functioning regulations detectable in the law on perpetual books and mortgage and referring to the instrument of disposing of the vacated mortgage place. The new institution which substantially transformed the previously known model of mortgage succession was introduced into the Polish system by the amendment to the law on perpetual books and mortgage and by amendments to some other statutory laws, the amendment coming into force on 20 February 2011 after the 18-month lasting vacatio legis. The authoress analyses the topic of her research by exploiting the historical method and that of comparative type. Among the most important observations that she makes is the one which points to the present-day regulation of the institution of disposing of the vacated mortgage place as anchored in the project of property law of 1939. While summing up her study, the authoress stresses that the Polish legislator tends toward emphasizing the positive aspects and eliminating the negative ones in the regulations detectable not only in foreign systems but also in the aforementioned projects of 1937, 1939 and 2000. The authoress points out that the legislator was not indifferent to polemics that were published in legal journals and referred to the respective projects. What testified to this was the introduction into the Polish legal system of the concept of disposition of the vacated mortgage place.

The book by Marcin Starzyński recapitulates, rectifies and complements what we at present know about the medieval City Council of Cracow as an institution. The discussed monograph collected the most important issues devoted to the medieval Council of Cracow. The monograph pointed also to the directions along which further research should be continued. The volume therefore does not conclude the study of the aforementioned institution. Its task is rather to introduce further research whose subject-matter might include: the prosopographic studies, the law-creating accomplishments of the Council and the political role that it played in the medieval Kingdom of Poland. It is worthwhile to note that half the volume is covered by the appendices that inform of the city councilors, include the register of the Council-produced wilkurs and specify the debts incurred by the Council in order to achieve the measures needed for lending money to the Kings.