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.

The history of public and constitutional law in Poland has known multiple influences, which derive from the circulation of French, German, Austrian, Russian, and Hungarian legal models. This is also relevant for the specific sector of the administration of justice. In this context, the peculiarities of the judiciary as regulated in the Polish Constitution of 1921 marked an important step in affirming the principle of the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary not only in Poland but throughout Europe.

The first full constitution of the reborn independent Polish state, adopted in March 1921, should be seen as, for many reasons, a liberal regulation. The latter two constitutions were shaped for the needs of states: authoritarian one (the April 1935 Constitution) and totalitarian, later dictatorial one (the July 1952 Constitution). It was only the Constitution of the Third Republic of 1997 that became a worthy successor to the March Constitution, both in terms of the governing system and the system of protection of the freedoms and rights of the individual. The basic law currently in force meets the highest standards of global constitutionalism.

Many constitutional regulations in force in the world prove that the way in which they deal with legal and religious issues is usually a derivative of the political and axiological assumptions adopted in these acts. It is also visible in the twentieth-century Polish constitutions. The March Constitution created a wide-ranging space for religious freedom, the April and July constitutions were the grounds for restrictions in this respect, and finally, the binding Constitution of 1997 may be the basis for establishing liberal legal regulations and corresponding liberal governmental practices.

The liberal basic laws of 1921 and 1997 include provisions on the obligation for the Polish state to conclude legal agreements (concordats) with the supreme authority of the Catholic Church, i.e. with the Holy See. In each case, these agreements resulted in a distortion of the constitutional model of state-religion relations towards the preferences of Catholicism, and thus opened the way to the construction of a largely benign Catholic religious state in Poland in the 1930s and the second and third decades of the present century. Looking at the same phenomenon in a different way, one can say the following: the strong integrist Catholic circles in Poland in the process of establishing democratic constitutions were not able to introduce into them the concept of a tolerant Catholic republic. Their idea, however, was successful by using the concordat as an instrument to implement their hegemonic vision and by persistently ignoring the provisions of the fundamental laws.

The author presents reflections on the legislative work concerning the preparation and adoption of the Polish Constitution in 1921. The paper analyses the political situation and social conditions of Poland at that time. The author presents the norms of the March Constitution in comparison with the political solutions of other countries at that time. The Author refers to a publication from one hundred years ago and tries to point out that at that time the representatives of legal science were aware of the shortcomings of the system adopted in this constitution. The paper presents the main reasons that influenced the collapse of the state system adopted in the Constitution of 1921. It also tries to indicate the symbolic meaning of this constitution in present-day social life.

The March Constitution of 1921, although it ceased to be in force several decades ago, is still applied in the jurisprudence of courts and the Constitutional Tribunal. It is not only used for historical interpretation but is also applied in cases where - in accordance with the principle of non-retroaction of the Constitution of 1997 and the tempus regit actum principle - there is a need to resolve a constitutional problem whose genesis dates back to the interwar period or the period of the People's Republic of Poland (1944-1952) when certain provisions of the March Constitution were in force. The article presents the types of cases adjudicated in the twenty-first century in which the courts and the  Constitutional Tribunal referred to the March Constitution.

The adoption of the Constitution of 17 March 1921 marked the beginning of an important stage in the development of modern state control in Poland. The March Constitution contributed to the separation of state control as a new function of the state, entrusted to an independent body, organised in the form of an office with elements of collegiality, independent from the Council of Ministers, but closely linked to the Sejm and working mainly for its needs. The aim of this article is not only to analyse the provisions of the March Constitution relating directly to the legal and organisational status of the Supreme Chamber of Control but also to show the role it played in the process of shaping the model of contemporary state control under the Polish Constitution of 2 April 1997.

This article presents a critical commentary on the judgment of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal concerning the constitutionality of Articles 523 Section 3, 521 Section 1, and 529 of the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure. In the  discussed ruling, the Constitutional Tribunal stated that challenged provisions have enabled courts to control the President's prerogative. Therefore, the Constitutional Tribunal judged that the aforementioned provisions are partially inconsistent with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. In this gloss, three issues are discussed. First, a question concerning the admissibility of issuing the judgment in the commented case. According to the author, a lack of a proper subject of the review is the reason the Constitutional Tribunal should have discontinued the proceeding in the present case. Second, a question regarding the effects of the application of the commented judgment, declaring unconstitutionality due to legislative omission, on the judicial process of application of the law. In the author's opinion, a court (or another authority applying the law) may not supplement the legal system with the omitted content while implementing such judgments. Third, a problem of commented judgment's influence on the legal system. The author points out that the discussed ruling does not produce any changes in the Polish legal system.