The paper aims to introduce the concept of constitutional liability of the President, and the institutions of the President’s constitutional liability. The author presents the liability and its relations with other types of head of state’s liabilities. The presented analysis includes all European countries. 

Judicial control of the conformity of law to the constitution nowadays serves as one of the basic guarantees of the observance of the constitution. In majority of continental European states it is performed by a particular body a constitutional court. So the same is true in Poland, however it seems still to be one of the least understood aspects of the functioning of our political system. And especially with regard to the opportunities offered by that for non­public entities to protect their rights and to influence the public decision making process. The awareness in this respect seems to be on a very low level. That is why the aim of the author is to verify a research assumption that the Constitutional Court jurisdiction has a serious social dimension, noticeable for Polish non­public actors.

The Italian Constitutional Court spoke on numerous occasions about the provisions of the Concordat concluded between the Italian Republic and the Roman Catholic Church. Up to the 1970s, the Constitutional Court had ruled for the most part on constitutionality of solutions regarding the Catholic religion. In this period of time the Constitutional Court issued rulings that were very important for the relation between the state and the Church. The article analyzes three significant sentences issued on March 1, 1971 regarding the institution of matrimony, as well as the sentence of July 8, 1971 in which the Constitutional Court resolved the constitutionality of the law allowing church marriages to be dissolved by the Italian civil courts. These rulings are very important due to the fact that the Italian Constitutional Court has referred to them on numerous occasions in the subsequent sentences, in which it considered the issue of the contradiction between the Concordat norms and the Constitution.

The Constitutional Court has functioned in Hungary since 1989. Its activity shaped the frame of democratic state of law and influenced the constitutional order in Hungary. In 2011 the National Assembly passed the new Act on the Constitutional Court that replaced a previous one from 1989. The provisions of the Act and the Fundamental Law reduced the role and position of the Court as a separated body in the tripartite power division. The reduction of competences is accompanied by the diminishing of the concluded cases as well.

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence. Over twelve years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the issue of universal, international acknowledgment of Kosovo still has not been resolved. The foundation for the establishment of the Republic of Kosovo was international society, which created the legal framework for the future statehood of Kosovo. The problem of the functioning of the constitutional judiciary was one of the key issues during the creation of the basic law of the Republic of Kosovo. This article s to analyze the constitutional position of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Kosovo in the state system established under the Constitution of 2008. It presents the composition of the Court, its competence, and principles of organization and functioning. The solution applied in the Kosovo basic law fits into the broadly understood model of the European constitutional judiciary.

The Ombudsman and the Organs of Judicial Power

The author shows that, in order to protect rights and freedoms, the Ombudsman, with the help of various instruments and depending on the infringements found, undertakes actions with organs of the judiciary, on which obligations concerning the protection of human rights and other subjects have been imposed. This article reviews the forms of the Ombudsman’s relations with the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, the Constitutional Tribunal, and common courts. Their aim is to raise the level of respect for human and civil rights. In this context the thesis of the article is as follows: in view of structural, legal and organisational defects of the state, the Ombudsman notes that new threats to human and civil rights appear, freedoms or rights granted to them are often taken away in a manner inconsistent with constitutional standards, and public authorities exceed the sphere of their powers in an expcessive manner. Allegations made in complaints against public authorities are often verified by the Ombudsman in the course of inquiries with his participation. The Ombudsman keeps his distance from these bodies, which enables him to influence them in the field of human rights protection, and above all to influence the individuals subordinate to them.

The operation of the Constitutional Court in Albania as a determinant of the EU accession process

The place of the Constitutional Court in Albania’s political system, the significance attributed to this institution and most of all the possibilities of fulfilment of its constitutional role are the subject of the analysis taken up in this paper. It addresses in particular the impact of the manner of operation of the Constitutional Court in the context of Albania’s European aspirations. Moreover, the study emphasises a thesis that Albania’s efforts to obtain membership of the European Union have been an essential element strengthening the process of Albania’s political, social and economic transformation.

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.

On the Need to Amend the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of April 2, 1997 with Regard to the Term and Functions of the Sejm and the Senate – Some Remarks on the Background of the Constitution of Czechia and Slovakia

The scope of this article is to show the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997 with regard to the term and functions of the Sejm and the Senate in Poland. The analysis shows that the provisions of the constitutions of Czechia and Slovakia are more precise, among other things, they more clearly define the parliament’s creative function in relation to the organs of the judicial power. Moreover, the Czech regulation concerning the Senate allows it to strengthen its political significance and position in relation to the first chamber of parliament, i.a. because of its greater role in the legislative procedure. In turn, the provisions contained in the Slovak Constitution protect the parliament against omissions of the head of state. These regulations should serve as a model for amending the Polish basic law.

Belgium as a Laboratory of Bipolar Federalism

Having moved away from unitarism, Belgium is described as a federal state of communities and regions. A large number of interpreters of the Belgian Constitution believe that federalism is an essential element of its constitutional identity. However, a more detailed analysis is needed to interpret the political system of this state. The breakdown of the unity of the political community at the national level as well as the doubt about the existence of a political nation are of crucial importance. A striking identity and growing separateness of the two linguistic groups, Flemish and Walloon, are decisive factors behind the originality of the political system of modern Belgium. In the article, I point out that the distinctive feature of the Belgian federalism involves the bipolarity and domination of the constitutional mechanism based on co-determination and co-operation of the two linguistic groups as the actual subjects of the power in the state. The predominance of this mechanism has significant systemic effects, including the renunciation of reforms to rationalize parliamentarism. The article also shows the importance of the Constitutional Court, hitherto underestimated, in maintaining the Belgian unity.

Ochrona grup wymagających szczególnego traktowania w orzecznictwie Sądu Konstytucyjnego Litwy

Orzecznictwo Litewskiego Sądu Konstytucyjnego miało istotny wpływ na wzmocnienie demokracji, praworządności i stabilności porządku konstytucyjnego na Litwie. Fundamentem każdego demokratycznego państwa, gdzie jest ważna praworządność, jest poszanowanie praw człowieka. Ponadto często podkreśla się, że sytuacja najsłabszych członków społeczeństwa odzwierciedla rzeczywisty poziom postępu i demokracji w danym państwie. Dlatego artykuł ten ma na celu ukazanie, w jaki sposób Sąd Konstytucyjny na Litwie przyczynił się do wzmocnienia ochrony osoby należącej do grupy osób wymagających szczególnego traktowania.

On the Possibility for the President to Withdraw the Request to the Constitutional Court Under the Preventive Control Procedure and the Request for Reconsideration of Law

The aim of the article is to draw attention to the issue of the possibility of the President of the Republic of Poland withdrawing a motion to the Constitutional Tribunal in the mode of preventive control and a motion for reconsideration of a law. In this paper the author discusses Art. 122 of the Constitution, in particular the time given to the President to become familiar with the presented regulations and to decide what further action should be taken, i.e. to sign it, to submit a motion to the Constitutional Tribunal, or alternatively to return it to the Sejm for reconsideration, or to exercise a veto. The author focuses primarily on the analysis of regulations concerning the problem in question, extended by a number of doctrinal views.

In this article, the author addresses the issue of state compensation liability. She presents Polish constitutional regulations as well as civil law regulations. In the analysis, she takes into account current problems related to the consequences resulting from the introduction of restrictions on rights and freedoms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper, examining the Hungarian example argues that that the price is high if a constitutional moment to adopt a constitution based on wide societal compromise has been missed. The constitution-making process might then be completed either by activist courts or by activist political forces. Hungary experienced two major constitutional reforms, both missing a consensual constitutional momentum. The first transformation in 1989–90, which replaced the socialist authoritarian system by democracy, was brought about by political elites, lacking democratic legitimacy, keeping the formal legal framework of the socialist constitution. The second reform in 2011 brought a formally new constitution (Fundamental Law of Hungary), initiated and adopted solely by the governing party (FIDESZ) with a constitutional majority, without consensus. The Constitutional Court both times attempted to play an active, corrective role in the aftermath of the constitution-making.

The article critically analyses the models of the constitutionality inspection adopted in Portugal and in Poland. For this purpose the comparative method has been applied, comparing Portuguese and Polish approaches. Theoretical aspects of the constitutionality inspection are discussed and the notions of the centralised and the diffuse inspection model are introduced. Then the paper analysis the actual inspection practices in both countries discussing the diffuse and concentrated inspection separately. Constitutional rules pertaining to the direct effect of the constitutions, constitutional jurisdiction of judges and operation of the constitutional courts are considered. The article concludes that in both countries different models of constitutionality inspection operate. In Portugal operates the mixed constitutionality inspection model while in Poland, despite views advocating for permissibility of the diffuse control, the centralised model functions.

The Influence of the French Constitutional Court on the National Tax System. Analysis on the Example of the High Income Tax (taxe sur les très hauts revenus)

This publication is a part of the study of the role of French Constitutional Court (Conseil constitutionnel) in the field of control of tax law regulations. The main purpose of this publication is not only to describe the specificity of the French legal system in this field but in the basis of the functional approach of the comparative legal method, the historical-descriptive and the dogmatic method, the verification of the thesis of the effectiveness of constitutional control of tax regulations in French legal system. This study that was done on the example of the high income tax (fr. taxe sur les très hauts revenus) however, it may be an incentive for further in-depth research in this area.

The article presents the results of a comparative study focusing on the right to conscientious objection in constitutions of modern states. This right is primarily associated with military service. In approximately a dozen constitutions, it stands as an independent, general right to conscientious objection. The constitutional scope of the given right is typically broad, with lawmakers seldom specifying the sources or conditions for its exercise. The contentious nature of the analysed right causes its explicit challenge in several constitutions. Case law, especially that of constitutional courts, reveals that the normative presence and the specifics of the right to conscientious objection within a particular legal system may not necessarily originate directly from constitutional provisions. Court decisions rendered in various countries sometimes attribute a constitutional character to this right, even when the fundamental law does not explicitly articulate it. Conversely, there are occasional restrictive interpretations of unequivocal constitutional provisions regarding conscientious objection.

Customary Law as an Unwritten Source of Law

Legal customs, as the basic regulations of social and legal relations, are considered to be the earliest of source of law. Thea im of the article is to show the difference between custom and customaty law, based on the features characterizing these concepts and to indicato selected examples of this type of practises occurring within constitutional law. The analisys will not refer to parliamentary customs. The main conclusions include that the existence of customary law is a fact that Carnot be excluded from constitutional practise and that it makes the legal system more flexible. Customary law can be treated as a formal source of law, but only by means of an act of enactment or recognition. Such an interpretation is not excluded by the content of the current Constitution of the Republic of Poland.