Mediation committee in the parliament

The subject of the article is the possibility of establishing a mediation committee in the Polish parliament. It is a special type of parliamentary committee responsible for resolving disputes between parliamentary chambers. The need to establish such committee results from the fact that the Senate exercises a number of constitutional powers independently of the Sejm. They include, among others, approval of the election of the Commissioner for Citizens’ Rights made by the Sejm. This issue became the subject of a long dispute in the Polish parliament. Solutions to this type of problem could be served by a mediation committee composed of representatives of both chambers, which main task would be to work out a compromise solution in the dispute between the Sejm and the Senate. The mediation committee could also facilitate the legislative procedure in the parliament, although in this case the final vote almost always belongs to the Sejm, which may reject amendments or the Senate’s objection to the bill.

Legislative Power and its Organs from the Perspective of the Practice of Membership of the Republic of Poland in the European Union

The aim of the article is to analyze the influence of the legislative authorities on the membership of the Republic of Poland in the European Union. A dozen or so years of Poland’s membership in this international organization allows for a new look at the phenomenon of the “democratic deficit”, which has for a long time been the case that the position of the legislative authorities is decreasing in connection with EU membership. It should be stated that the legislative authorities, due to the system of government established in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997, should play a greater role in the process of integration of the Republic of Poland with the European Union.

Parliamentarism in the Context of Political Transit: The Czech Republic’s Experience

For the first time in the Ukrainian political science, considers the development of parliamentarism in the Czech Republic in a context of political transit in a comprehensive manner. It indicates the ambiguity and complexity of the process of parliamentary democracy’s functioning in the country. The main stages of the Czech parliamentary institutions’ establishment have been identified. The key tendencies and the peculiarities of the current Czech parliamentarism modernisation have been defined. The constitutional and legal status of the Parliament of the Czech Republic has been outlined and its place in the existing checks and balances system determined; the Czech Parliament party structuring characteristics have been determined and the most important factors of the coalition formation potential of parliamentary fractions have been revealed; based on the empirical indicators, the party system’s stability and efficiency in the Czech Republic have been investigated. The fundamental principles of the liberal parliamentarism concept (Ch.L.Montesquieu, John Locke, John Mill) have served as the theoretical and methodological basis for these article, which considers the power division to be the main principle of the state system, in which the executive power is accountable and subject to the legislative power. In order to achieve the tasks, the author used general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction) as well as special politilogical methods. The methods of induction and deduction have been used in formulating the concept of “political transit” and its constituent elements. The comparativehistorical method gave the defender of the thesis the opportunity to understand the main directions of parliamentary institutions’ development at different historical stages of the Czech statehood and identify the factors that influenced the change in their status. The system method allowed to assess the constitutional and legal status of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, primarily its place and role in the political system of society and the relationship with other bodies of state power. On the whole, we can assume that the experience of the parliamentarism functioning in the Czech Republic is of great practical significance for Ukraine and other post-communist states, since it gives a stimulus to the society and ruling elites of these countries to further improve and develop their political institutions.

Material Equality in Senate Elections

The article analyzes the issue of material equality in elections to the Senate. The electoral system in elections to the upper house of parliament in Poland radically violates the principle of material equality of elections. It is characterized by a large disproportion in the size of electoral districts in terms of the number of inhabitants in individual electoral districts. The current division into electoral districts, resulting from the annex to the Electoral Code, violates its provisions. It is also controversial from other points of view. It also raises the question of its compliance with the principle of a democratic state of law.