The aim of the article is an analysis of the phenomenon of breaking the constitution. It comes from expierence of the german legal positivism from the second half of the nineteenth century and it is firmly rooted in the constitutional practice of the Second Reich. This practice was the passing of the laws in the mode required for the constitutional change. Their result was the modification of some of the constitutional norms without any change of their text. Such laws didn’t repeal the binding force of concrete norms directly, but they did it indirectly. Such laws didn’t become the part of the constitution in formal meaning, but they became the part of it in a material sense. This practice was accepted by the majority of the german constitutionalists and other representatives of legal science. Supporters of the practice were especially the authors of liberal­democratic views. While the authors of the conservative views rejected the provisions of the legal positivism and the practice of breaking the constitutional norms traeted as an extraordinary measure of the repealing of the binding force of them and it cannot violate the fundamental rules and values of the constitution. Nowadays the weimar authors discussion is the important source of inspiration for the participants of the global debate on the limits of the constitutional change and the need for separation and the protection of constitutional identity.

The article is devoted to the issue of the importance of the Constitutional Tribunal as a body that guarantees the supremacy of the Constitution in a political system based on the principle of a democratic state ruled by law. While reviewing the compliance of the law with the Constitution, the Tribunal is also a particularly important guarantor of the protection of freedoms and human rights, protecting citizens against arbitrary interference by ruling politicians in the sphere of individual freedom. The basic condition for the effective performance of the Tribunal’s functions is its independence from political authorities. Changes in the functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal, introduced after 2015, deprived the Tribunal of the ability to effectively perform the function of guardian of the Constitution and protector of freedoms and human rights. As a result, the current Tribunal is the anti­thesis of the constitutional court within the meaning of constitutional and international democratic standards. In the last part of the article, the authors present the basic assumptions of the bills prepared by legal experts of the Stefan Batory Foundation, aimed at restoring the proper functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland.

The article presents the idea of civic participation as a value, which, due to its positive aspects, is widely desired by society in a democratic state governed by the rule of law. Participation as a value collectively forms an axiological system. In a constitutional state, the axiological system is normatively expressed in the content of the constitution, within which it takes the form of constitutional norms and principles. Civic participation has been adopted into the Constitution of the Republic of Poland in an indirect manner. A holistic interpretation of the Constitution’s provisions allows it to be interpreted from the overarching systemic principles: the principle of the common good (Article 1) the principle of the democratic state of law (Article 2), the principle of the sovereignty of the Nation (Article 4) and the principle of social dialogue (Article 20). Consequently, civic participation as a constitutional value determines how laws are made. The State has an obligation to introduce and strengthen institutions of civic participation. Civic participation based on civil, political and social rights as well as institutions of social solidarity is an element of a democratic state of law and can be a solution to the problems of contemporary democracy.

The article presents arguments for the need to further improve of the Polish constitutional provisions establishing guarantees in the area of personal data protection. To this end, the development and current framework of EU data protection law and the national guarantees of the individual’s informational autonomy introduced in the Polish Constitution are presented. Against this background, the author argues that the Polish Constitution, although it provides certain guarantees related to the protection of information concerning an individual, is not in fact a source of a coherent, consistent and independent public subjective right to the protection of personal data. The author considers whether the examined set of constitutional norms can constitute a control model for assessing the permissibility of using many modern (and intrusive) forms of interference with fundamental rights, including those used by public entities – in this regard, he discusses in detail the case of the ClearView AI system. Particular attention is paid to the impact of the recent reform of the sub-constitutional provisions on the protection of personal data on the legibility and effectiveness of constitutional guarantees of the informational autonomy of the individual.

The aim of the article is to analyze the legitimacy and legal admissibility of the adoption of the Act of 29 September 2022 on the extension of the term of office of local government units. In the act, the legislator extended the term of office of local government bodies by half a year, in order to avoid the overlapping of two election processes in 2023 (local and parliamentary elections). The paper analyzes the arguments in favor of separating the two electoral processes and those which, from the constitutional and legal point of view, contradict the legislative actions taken. In particular, the aim will be to verify whether the measure adopted by the legislator was appropriate. In order to implement the above-mentioned assumptions, the work uses the formal and legal method and analyzes the achievements of jurisprudence and doctrine. To the extent necessary, the empirical method was also used (in particular in terms of identifying threats that could result from the overlapping of local government and parliamentary elections in 2023).

The commented judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal recognises that the complete and lifelong exclusion of expungement of a criminal convicted for so-called paedophilia crimes is consistent with the principle of humanitarianism, the right to privacy, the right to personal freedom and the freedom to choose an occupation. In the author’s opinion, the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal deserves criticism. The Tribunal refers only to the superficial degree to the constitutional problem presented to it, which in fact has been reduced to a simple conflict between “the rights of a criminal” and the abstractly understood “best interest of a child”. The reasonings lack any considerations as to whether the examined solution is effective in practice, i.e. whether it actually contributes to the protection of children against sexual offenders. The judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal illustrates the loosening of the standard for assessing the admissibility of restrictions on civil rights and freedoms, in which the overriding goal (in this case, “the child’s best interest”) plays a central role, while the fact whether a given solution is at least useful or necessary or proportionate is less significant.