Constitutional Oversight of Government Surveillance in the United States

The aim of the article is the analysis of constitutional oversightof the government surveillance in the United States. Referring to Snowden affair and COVID-19 surveillance, the Author discusses the challenges faced by the legislative and judicial branches in pursuing control over the executive’s national security policies. Focusing on the rule of secrecy and other constitutional doctrines and privileges, he tries to explain why effective control of government surveillance is today impossible.

Brights and Shadows of Article 41 of the Code of Conduct Misdemeanour Cases in the Context of Article 31, Section 3 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland

The text gives an analysis of the solutions concerning the examination of a witness in the course of misdemeanour proceedings. The two-pronged nature of these solutions is noted here. On the one hand, the provisions of the 2001 Act recapitulate a number of solutions applied in the criminal trial, i.e. originating from the 1997 Code of Criminal Procedure, while on the other hand they constitute solutions of their own. The latter are rules concerning, inter alia, the exemption of a witness from secrecy of classified information and secrecy connected with the function or profession performed. The publication notes the contradiction of Art. 41 § 3 and § 4 of the Code of Conduct Misdemeanour Cases with the constitutional benchmark of protection of the right to privacy and their incompatibility with the rules set out by Art. 31 sec. 3 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.