Relations between the principles of proper legislation  and the principles of legislative techniques in the process of law-making

Meaning of the principles of legislative techniques (PLT) and the principles of proper legislation (PPL) should be regarded as a key to the process of lawmaking. These rules are often a guarantee for the protection of human rights. The principles of good legislation are inferred by the Constitutional Court of Art. 2 of the Polish Constitution (the democratic rule of law). The principles of legislative techniques are included in the Annex to the Regulation of the Prime Minister Council of Ministers dated on 20 June 2002 on the principles of legislative technique. The paper presents a characteristics of both disciplines taking into account their specificity and historical background. It was also shown that by joint application of PPL and PLT and their inseparable correlation legislator may establish acts that will guarantee the protection of human rights and will protect the interests of the State. The Author also identified benefits which derive form joint application of both sets of legislative rules and principles.

French model of post-legislative scrutiny

The article deals with the subject of evaluation of legislation in the French parliament. The French model for the assessment of adopted legislation is highly original and – to some extent – unique. This is mainly determined by the increase of evaluation activities to the rank of constitutional decisions and a clear recognition that the so-called evaluation of public policies (évaluation des politiques publiques) is one of the functions of the parliament. French experience can not be treated as a model for the establishment of similar assessment procedures in the analytical work of the Polish Sejm. These are carried out on the basis of general scientific and expert advice, which, however, from a formal point of view, are not the proper parliamentary procedure (as is the case in France). However, one can reach for a general scheme of evaluation methodology, which regardless of whether the assessment of adopted laws is carried out by parliament bodies (eg committees) or entities that are part of the Sejm Chancellery (eg BAS) can be adopted. This is primarily about the introduction of two levels of such an assessment, i.e. the level of assessment of the legal degree of implementation of the Act (through the relevant implementing acts) and the level of proper impact assessment that the Act triggers (substantive evaluation). It seems that following the French solutions, one could also introduce, as a solution, optimal, temporal assumptions for such control, i.e. a period of six months to assess whether the law was correctly introduced by the government into the legal circulation and a period of three years to assess this whether the effects that the Act triggers correspond to what was expected at the time the bill was submitted.

Legal means of filibustering

This article aims at an attempt to analyze the phenomenon of filibustering, with respect to the legal means used by members of parliament to disturb the legislative procedure. The right to such action stems from the essence of the political opposition itself and can be construed as a last resort in the area of expressing objections to the actions of the majority, while not being illegal. Filibustering is a common phenomenon in all of the well-developed, democratic political systems, which do not penalize such action, moreover, in which the parliamentary tradition or the internal provisions of parliamentary statutes create an opportunity to legally disturb the legislative process. Furthermore, this article concerns the matter of reducing the occurrence of

Legislation on Family Fideicommissa in the Second Polish Republic

The article describes the creation and content of legal regulations in the Second Polish Republic regarding a special institution, which were family fideicommissa (entails), called in Poland ordynacje rodowe – indivisible estates in the hands of aristocratic families, excluded from the general principles of inheritance, with restrictions in the field of, i.a., disposition and charging. The author proves that the legislation in this respect was influenced by the then agrarian policy and attempts to regulate the land reform. Family laws were perceived in particular as a relic of feudalism contrary to the constitutional order and a policy aimed at basing the agricultural structure on middle and small property and thus raising the social and economic status of the poor masses of Polish peasants. The author describes political postulates in this regard, successive legal acts created by the legislature and the accompanying parliamentary discussions.