Qualified Majority of Votes Higher Than the Majority Required for Amending the Constitution

The 1997 Constitution of Poland provides for one, three or four instances – depending on the interpretation – for the parliamentary majority of votes higher than that required for amending that Constitution. The aim of this paper is to specify the reasons that might have guided the Constitution-makers in adopting such a gradation, and to analyse those regulations in the light of democratic axiology. Nonetheless the difficulties related to adopting decisions by the parliament result both from legal (procedural and material) and non-legal factors, majority of votes remains a basic criterion specifying the level of those difficulties, underlying the role that the minority plays in democracy. In the context of electoral process’ distortions qualified majority may also be seen as ensuring that parliamentary decisions indeed reflect the will of the voters’ majority. In a democratic state there are, however, such values that cannot be eliminated even by the highest majorities.