Parliamentary Review of the Constitutionality of Bills – Some Remarks on the Background of the Article 34 p. 8 of the Standing Orders of the Sejm
- Institution: Uniwersytet Gdański
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8972-4088
- Year of publication: 2019
- Source: Show
- Pages: 71-81
- DOI Address: https://doi.org/10.15804/ppk.2019.05.05
- PDF: ppk/51/ppk5105.pdf
According to the Standing Orders of the Sejm the Speaker of the Sejm, after seeking the opinion of the Presidium of the Sejm, may refer any bills which raise doubts as to their consistency with law, in particular with the Constitution, to the Legislative Committee for its opinion. If the Committee finds the bill unconstitutional and therefore inadmissible, the Speaker can refuse to initiate the legislative procedure. The above regulation has for many years raised doubts as to its consistency with the Constitution, in particular the constitutional right to legislative initiative (Article 118) or the rule of considering statutes in three readings by the Sejm (Article 119, Article 120). The article presents the genesis and the analysis of the current regulation of the parliamentary review of the constitutionality of bills in Poland at the very beginning of the legislative procedure, the controversies that arise on that background and the discussion on that issue among the representative of the doctrine as well as conclusions de lege lata and de lege ferenda.