Activity of Parliamentary Opposition Deputies on the Example of No-confidence Motions (VI-IX Term of the Polish Sejm)

The article presents the terms of the Sejm in which the parliamentary opposition demanded that the Sejm express a vote of no confidence in members of the Council of Ministers. The authors of the study focused on presenting the parliamentary practice from the sixth to the ninth terms of the Sejm related to the number of motions for a vote of no confidence submitted, rather than on their substantive analysis. The examples of allegations included in the justifications for the motions, indicated in the study, concerned the ministers against whom the largest number of motions for a vote of no confidence were directed in a given term of the Sejm. The purpose of the article is to answer the question: in which term of the Sejm did the parliamentary opposition actively use the vote of no confidence against ministers, demonstrating the mistakes they made and demanding their dismissal?

This paper examines the procedure of electing the Commissioner for Human Rights (Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich) by the Sejm. The considerations are conducted in the context of its representativeness. How does the Sejm proceed when two or more candidates have been nominated? In such a situation, is voting carried out in alphabetical order, in accordance with the principle that the candidate who obtained a, n absolute majority of votes is elected, or is there a joint vote on the candidates, in accordance with the principle that in the absence of an absolute majority of votes by one of the candidates in the first voting, the name of the candidate who obtained the lowest number of votes in the previous round is removed from the list of candidates before the next round of voting? As argued in this paper, the order of voting is not neutral to the effects of voting. From the point of view of individual candidates, it may privilege some and discriminate against others. The text uses the dogmatic method and legal reasoning.

Legal Chaos – About the Difficult but Necessary

The constitutional crisis that began at the end of 2015 left an impact on the functioning of the entire legal system in Poland. Subsequent changes to the regulations and actions taken by the Parliament and the President of the Republic of Poland only deepened the legal chaos and led to situation in which there is no simple way to restore the proper functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal. After many months of work, the Parliament adopted the Act of September 13, 2024 on the Constitutional Tribunal, which would replace the currently applicable legal acts regulating the status of judges of the CT and the functioning of the CT itself. The aim of the article is to examine whether the most important solutions proposed in the Act and the provisions implementing the Act, are consistent with the values and norms resulting from the Constitution and whether they are likely to be effective?

Conditioning the Application of Statutory Provisions on the Issuance of a Communicate by a Minister

In the article, the author discusses the legislative practice of conditioning the application of statutory provisions on the issuance of a communicate by a minister. The author mentions one example of such a practice and notes that a communicate is an act of internally binding law. This, in turn, leads him to the conclusion that the presented phenomenon is unconstitutional, as it allows influencing the legal situation of an individual by an internally binding act. In the author’s opinion, such practice is unconstitutional first and foremost with Art. 2 (in particular the principle of trust to the state and the law made by it) and Art. 10 sec. 1 (the principle of the separation of powers – adopting provisions regulating the application of a statute falls within the competences of the legislature and not the executive). This makes this phenomenon clearly negatively assessed by the author.

The Syntactic and Chronological Structure of the Article 4 Section 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the Direct Power of the Nation

The aim of the article is to logically analyze the normative structure establishing the method of exercising power by the Polish Nation. The provision of Art. 4, sec. 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland was interpreted, and then the obtained results were compared with the case law of the Constitutional Tribunal (CT), the views of the doctrine of legal science and political science. One of the goals is to examine whether there are discrepancies between the theories resulting from the logical analysis and the current scientific and institutional practice. The political science and legal approach to this issue will include, among others, the logical structure of the analyzed provision and its possible supplementation – in the chronological aspect – by the case law of the Constitutional Tribunal. The method of analysis of sentences of formal logic, formal-dogmatic, systemic and institutional-legal was used. The analysis shows that from a logical point of view, the structure of the provision – taking into account the assumptions of, among others, the doctrine of law and the Constitutional Tribunal – tends to a situation in which, according to the assumption, it is always the Nation that will exercise power directly or indirectly.

The Institution of a Child Representative in the Context of the Right to a Court (with a Special Reference to Proceedings in Family Matters)

The purpose of the article is to present the institution of the child representative in the context of the constitutional right to a court against the background of family cases. The paper characterises the right to court and the right to be represented, in particular the right to be heard. The new institution of family law – the child’s representative – acting in some countries as a guardian ad litem or guardian ad litem – is presented. The child as the subject of his or her rights should be guaranteed the right to be heard and to have his or her views represented. The paper analyses the institution of the child representative and its importance by the child’s best interests. The institution of a child representative is a regulation that has the potential to increase the participation of children in court procedures, which is particularly important in family proceedings.