Judicial Power in a Crisis of Constitutional Democracy

The article is devoted to the problems of changing the position of the judiciary in Poland in the conditions of crisis of constitutional democracy. Two basic research hypotheses are verified. First of all, after 2015, Poland was one of the countries revising its liberal-democratic political foundations. Such foundations undoubtedly include: the rule of law, the principle of constitutionalism and the principle of division and balance of power. Secondly, the political position of the judiciary has been defined in the liberal-democratic Constitution of the Republic of Poland in a way appropriate for the protection of the above mentioned values, but the political practice shows that the lack of proper will to implement the constitutional provisions (using the arithmetic advantage in parliament without the recognition of minority rights) may violate the „backbone” of constitutional democracy.

This study aims to discuss the organizational models of the judicial councils functioning in the three Baltic States - Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The analysis takes into account the time and direct rationale for establishing the relevant bodies, their composition and the process of selecting the chairperson, the length and recurrence of the term of office, the number of judges in the council, and the competences of the councils. The overview of Estonian, Lithuanian, and Latvian legal solutions is intended to examine the legal basis of the Judicial Councils, their legal status, composition, and organization, and their competences in the light of the standards developed in Europe. The work was prepared based on a dogmatic-legal method, using elements of historical and comparative analysis.

100 years of defining the Polish model of “separation” of the judiciary – what we had, what we have and what we might want to have

The subject of the study is an analysis of over a hundred years of practice defining the role and political position of courts in Poland. The verification will be subject to compliance in the practice of exercising power not only with constitutional provisions (or indicating the reasons and consequences of their omission), but also with other regulations that accompany the creation and application of specific legal solutions in the context of guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary. At the same time, the assessment of the adopted solutions in terms of respect for the standards developed by international bodies for the protection of individual freedoms and rights and EU bodies was taken into account.

The Concept of Legitimacy on the Example of the Status of a Judge in Polish Constitutional Law

The subject of the analysis is the definition of legitimacy of the systemic status of a judge. The author has previously reconstructed two lexical understandings of the term “legitimacy”, which he defined as “state” and “process,” respectively. The thesis, that the way of defining the term “legitimacy” as “process” is adequate for analyzing the legitimacy of a judge’s constitutional position is the apex for further research. The author has formulated his own definition of legitimacy, referring to the judge’s systemic status. This is a particularly momentous task given the complexity of the construct of legitimacy, as well as the prevailing terminological confusion in the doctrine. The problem of legitimacy with regard to judges is crucial not only in terms of the legitimacy of their constitutional position, but also in terms of a possible finding of lack of legitimacy, given the consequences of this.

The article is devoted to the analysis and the characteristics of the rights and the proxies of the monarch in Romania according to the Constitution of 1866. The adoption of the first Basic Law was the fateful act in the history of the state-building processes of Romania and contributed to its development as the sovereign state. The Constitution had the contractual nature and established the compromise between the young bourgeoisie and the large landowners in the form of the constitutional monarchy. The king in Romania for a long time remained the person who was «above» of all the state and political leadership of the country. This status and the proxies of the monarch were delegated with the first Basic Law. The legal fixing of such legal status of the monarch at the level of the Constitution made it possible to establish full-fledged royal power, which was an extremely important state-political step for the development of Romania as the independent country. The constitutional foundations, the functions and the limitations of the institution of the monarchical power in the principality were fixed in the number of the articles of the Constitution of 1866. At the same time, the important state-constitutional aspect was the clear fixation that all proxies of the monarch could be done based on the interests of the Romanian nation. The Basic Law of 1866 established the proxies of the monarch such as in the legislative branch of power (the right of legislative initiative, the right of the interpretation of laws, Articles 32–34); executive power (had to implement it in the manner determined with the Constitution, Article 35) and partially in the justice system (the right to declare amnesty on the political issues, the right to postpone or to mitigate punishment in criminal cases, Article 93). For strengthening of the foundations of the statehood, the Constitution officially established the principle of the hereditary power of the monarch (Article 82). His person was declared inviolable. Herewith, the Romanian constitutionalists fixed that the monarch did not have any other proxies, except those granted to him with the Basic Law (Article 96). Adopted in 1866, the Basic Law approved legally the democratic aspirations of the Romanian nation. It defined directly the most important principles of the state functioning as the principle of the national sovereignty, the principle of the division of powers, the principle of representative government, the principle of hereditary monarchy, the principle of the responsibility of the state officials, the principle of the Rule of law, etc. The Basic Law definitely contributed to the gradual democratization of the state-governing and public structures, the formation of the concept of the civil personality and untouchability, foresaw the presence of the political and legal pluralism in the country, etc. Due to the introduction of the institution of the constitutional monarchy, that ruler in the person of Karl I could establish and hold the certain political balance in the country between the liberals and the conservatives, which opened the possibility to potentially strengthen the two-party system and laid the foundations of the civil society and the future constitutional life of Romania.