The aim of this article is to present the development and structure of the judiciary in the Vatican City State, which is an absolute and elective monarchy, while the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church enjoys full legislative, executive and judicial power. In turn, the system of public authorities’ power has a complex structure and is completely different from the construction of the political system in other countries. This in turn implies the original judicial structure in the Vatican City State.

Polish System of Disciplinary Liability of Judges in the Light of Standards European Union Law

The study presents current issues of the disciplinary liability of judges, starting with an indication of historical attempts to introduce new, unified regulations intended to cover most of the legal professions, up to the enactment of the statutes of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court and the so-called Disciplinary Law for judges. The author conducts an in-depth analysis of the disciplinary regulations in terms of testing compliance with EU law standards and the need to ensure the effectiveness of EU legal solutions.

In this article, the author tries to point out the problems of the legal system and democratic society after 1989 in the condition of Slovak Republic and ultimately almost in all the countries of post-Communist period. The aim of this work is to point out the development of justice and judicial authorities in Slovakia since 1989 and its current state. The result should be the naming of all elements influencing the judiciary, decision-making activity of court in the context of the directive and the rules of the European Community. The next point is the description of the independence and connection of the judiciary and its offices to state power and related isues. Also, the autor describes to the establishment of the Judicial Council of the Slovak Republic as the highest office of the judiciary in the Slovak Republic, its competences, powers and functioning. In the same way there are listed other offices without which the judiciary as such could not function like Prosecutor’s Office of the Slovak Republic, Slovak Bar Association, Notary Chamber of the Slovak Republic and Slovak Chamber of Executors. At the end of the article the author evaluates the development of justice in the context of an ever-evolving democratic society.

Legal Question to the Constitutional Tribunal. Expectations and Directions of Changes

This study is devoted to the analysis of the provision of Article 193 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, which authorizes each court to submit a legal question to the Polish constitutional court about the compliance of a normative act with the Constitution, ratified international treaties or the act, if the answer to a legal question depends on the resolution of a case pending before the court. It is worth considering the expectations and directions of changes of the analyzed institution against the background of the applicable legal provisions. The practice of applying a legal question to the Constitutional Tribunal needs to be examined. During these more than thirty-five years, the constitutional measure has undergone some transformations. The main goal of this work is to assess the title legal question through the prism of over three decades of its operation.

In Western legal traditions, democracy is inseparable from the rule of law, which presupposes the state to establish an effective and transparent judicial system that guarantees human rights and freedoms. The involvement of Lay Participation in the administration of justice (lay judges (mixed tribunal) or justices of the peace (magistrates) is one of the instruments for achieving this objective. The constitutions of the fourteen EU Member States, including Poland, oblige some Lay Participation in the administration of justice. However, the formulations of the norms in the constitutions, establishing Lay Participation in the administration of justice, differ. Based on the analysis of the Polish case, the article focuses on the question whether it would be sufficient to establish a relevant general provision in the Constitution, leaving the specification (form and extent of Lay Participation) to the legislator. The case of Poland has shown that the legislator can, without amending the Constitution, introduce other forms of Lay Participation (such as justices of the peace) or/and extend the extent of Lay Participation to judicial disciplinary cases when they are elected by the legislature; however, this poses a threat to the rule of law in Poland. Therefore, the article aims at discussing the impact of the Polish constitutional regulation of the Lay Participation on the violation of the rule of law.

The People’s Courts of the nomadic population of tsarist Turkestan – an important element of the “local” authorities’ structure (based on archives, legal documents and other materials)

The article considers the status and the role of “native” judicial power in the system of common local self-government bodies among the nomadic population in the pre-revolutionary Central Asia.

Dysfunctionality of Election Protests in Poland in the Standard of Fair Elections

Fair elections are one of the foundations of electoral axiology in a democratic state ruled by law. Every citizen has the right to protest, and the justification of the citizen’s complaint is the public interest. An election protest is a legal measure to control the held General elections and its purpose is to protect the public interest in the electoral process. The standard of fair elections is not only a context for legal solutions strictly derived from the Constitution or the Electoral Code. The juridical architecture of electoral protests in Poland generally creates an effective mechanism to address obvious and flagrant violations of the law but remains dysfunctional from the perspective of the fair election standard. Nor does it provide an instrument to prevent a slide into electoral authoritarianism due to violations of the minimum criteria of democracy.