The Remembrance Policy in Poland: the System Between the Constitutional Obligation and the Instrumentalization of Law

The paper analyzes relations between the law and the system of politics of memory in Poland, integrating legal and political research. The main objective is a discussion of co-dependencies between the law – including the constitutional law – and the government’s involvement in the politics of memory. The paper summarizes the legal status, the remembrance system’s formal framework and political decisions executing the constitutional obligation of commemorating the past. Considering the complexity of the remembrance policy system in Poland, its foundation in the legal system, and the dynamics of policymaking, the Authors present that the seeming servitude of law to politics is an apparent complex interdependence based on the constitutional bases of memory politics.

Possible Amendment of the Constitutional Regulations of the National Broadcasting Council – Necessary, Advisable or Unnecessary?

The author answers the question posed in the title of the paper on the basis of the analysis of doctrinal views and constitutional practice. He strongly advocates maintaining the constitutionalisation of the National Broadcasting Council, although he claims that the constitutional regulations shall be amended. He indicates which changes are necessary and which are advisable. The conclusion is that the two issues require necessary changes: first, the Council’s competencies related to the personal composition of the managing bodies of the public media and second, the appointment, dismissal and term of office of the members of the Council. The indicated changes include: the place of the Council in the structure of the Constitution; introduction of the duty to control abuses of freedom of speech, clarification that both obtaining and dissemination of information are under supervision, and control of broadcasting activity not only of public media but of all authorised entities.