Constitutional complaint in the Latin America – selected issues

This paper explores some issues, concerning constitutional complaint in the Latin American countries. It starts from the term of constitutional complaint, based both on the Polish and Latin American literature. Such a comparative overview allows then for better understanding the discussed question. Further, there is illustrated different terminology, which is applied in the Latin America. Specifically, there are discussed such issues as the binding legal acts, substantive and procedural premises and the final decisive authorities, which are taking their decisions. This paper also investigates an issue, concerning the function of constitutional complaint in Mexico.

Dispute over the Interpretative Verdicts of the Constitutional Tribunal –  the Standpoint in the Discussion

The article consists of few parts. At the beginning, the author discusses a definition of interpretative verdicts and a history of the dispute between The Supreme Court and the Constitutional Tribunal over this kind of judgments. The author doesn’t present arguments that are described in literature but climes that the dispute concernes three problems: legality of interpretative verdicts, their binding force and interpretative verdicts as a base for reopening proceedings. In the second part, two arguments against delivering interpretative verdicts are formed. The author claims that the Constitutional Tribunal should limit a number of such judgments because there is no legal ground for interpretative verdicts in the Constitution and because they abridge independence of judges of the Supreme Court and other courts. In the last part of the article, the author describes a genetic cause of the litigation between the Tribunal and courts. It is claimed that the dispute has been generated by dissentions between methods of interpretation of legal acts used by the Tribunal and the Supreme Court. The Tribunal takes advantage of the method of derivation and the Supreme Court usually uses the method of clarification. These methods are in contrary to each other and because of this they are the base of the dispute.

Principle of “lex retro non agit”. Is the Law not Retroactive?

The principle of non-retroactivity is recognized as one of the foundations of the civilized system of the modern state. The essence of the principle of non-retroactivity can be reduced to the assertion that the law should, in principle, act “for the future”, therefore it should not be legal norms that would apply to events that occurred and ended before their entry into force. In other words, the legal consequences of events taking place under the old norms should be assessed according to these norms, even if new regulations are already in force at the moment of making such an assessment. The retroactive act of the regulations is when the lawmaker orders certain relevant legal facts, existing before the day of entry into force of the new provisions, assessed in the light of these new provisions, introducing a fiction that these provisions were already in force on the date of the assessed facts. If the regulation contained in the regulation obviously acts “for the future” and at the same time has legal effects only 3 months after the entry into force of the act, it does not violate the principle of non-retroactivity. This doesn’t mean that without violating the principle of non-retroactivity, the legislator may freely interfere in existing legal relations and modify them freely. The boundary here is, above all, observance of the principle of protection of acquired rights and principles of protection of trust in the state and the law. It is unacceptable to create norms retrospectively, if the entities to whom these standards relate could not rationally anticipate such decisions, and extraordinary circumstances or goods subject to constitutional protection, such decisions do not justify. You can withdraw from it, but only exceptionally and for justified reasons, giving the norms the ability to influence the existing situations, if there were valid reasons, and the interested entities had grounds to expect the adoption of such standards.

The importance of the stare decisis doctrine for judicial control of the constitutionality of US law – between the stability of jurisprudence and instrumentalism

All American courts have a right to examine the conformity of legal acts with the Constitution as the basis for issuing a decision, creating a diffused system of judicial review. Court precedents and the stare decisis doctrine become the stabilizing factor of jurisprudence. However, it is not easy to make an unequivocal assessment of the role of the stare decisis doctrine for judicial review due to a number of factors that affect its significance. They include the formal lack of absolute nature of the court decisions, or the fact that the Federal US Supreme Court is not bound by its own rulings. The latter fact seems particularly important in the assessment of the subject matter in the context of considerable judicial activism and the way the judges are nominated and approved for, in principle, lifetime positions. In this publication, all the above-mentioned factors have been analyzed in order to assess the significance of the stare decisis doctrine for judicial review in the US as accurately as possible.

Immunity of a Judge in Criminal Matters in the Context of the Process of the Delegitimization of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court

The subject of the article is to show the issues related to the institution of judicial immunity and its importance in bringing judges to criminal liability on the basis of current constitutional and procedural provisions. The author made these considerations a starting point for an in-depth analysis of the issue of delegitimization of the judiciary on the basis of recent processes in Poland concerning the National Council of the Judiciary and the newly established Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court. The whole is issue situated on the level of EU law, national regulations and rich jurisprudence of the judicial authorities.

The problem of the grounds and procedure for rejecting the financial statements of the election committee

Financial statement is an important element in checking the compliant financing of an election campaign. According to the Election Code, the financial representative of the election committee should submit to the election body to which the election committee previously submitted a notification of its establishment, a financial report on the committee’s revenues, expenses and liabilities, including bank loans obtained and loans conditions. In this situation, the financial statement may be submitted to the National Electoral Commission as well as to other election bodies. However, if the report was rejected by the election commissioner, the financial representative may appeal against such decision to the District Court. Judicial practice shows that it was disputed whether a complaint could be brought in a situation where the report was accepted, but at the same time the identified shortcomings were identified. The content of the obligatory statutory grounds for rejecting the report was also questioned.

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.

Verification of the validity of nationwide elections in Poland

The article discusses the procedure for verifying the validity of nationwide elections in Poland. The author draws attention to the important role attributed to elections as an essential element of the democratic system and the need to preserve the will expressed by the sovereign in voting. Verification of elections in Poland is carried out by the Supreme Court, in a two-stage procedure involving issuing an opinion on the election protests lodged and then passing a resolution on the validity of the elections. The author draws attention to the narrow and formalistic interpretation of legal norms in the course of issuing a resolution on the validity of elections.

Amendment of June 9, 2022 to the Act of the Supreme Court – real or illusory change?

This paper is devoted to the Act of June 9, 2022 amending the Act on the Supreme Court and certain other acts. Despite the liquidation of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court, the analysis of this act leads to the conclusion that the Polish legislator petrifies the unconstitutional judicial appointments. Judges appointed to the Supreme Court with the participation of the National Council of the Judiciary, formed according to unconstitutional rules, will be able to continue to exercise judicial functions in that court. In addition, the unconstitutional procedure for the appointment of judges remains unchanged.

Extraordinary Complaint as an Instrument for Controlling the Compliance of Final Judgments with Art. 2 of the Constitution of Poland

The Supreme Court is responsible for administering justice through extraordinary control of final court judgments in order to ensure their compliance with art. 2 of the Polish Constitution. In this paper, the research hypothesis is the significance of the functioning of an extraordinary complaint due to the principle of a democratic state ruled by law that it affirms. The research hypothesis was verified by the method of analyzing the functioning of an extraordinary complaint. Considerations on the basis of the judgment of the Supreme Court of May 8, 2019, file ref. no. I NSNc 2/19 allowed to confirm the hypothesis and to draw a conclusion that the protection afforded by the presented control measure is an important instrument for supporting effective administration of justice, and the presented task of the Supreme Court concerning the compliance of judgments with Art. 2 of the Constitution is an important and necessary competence.

The Constitutional Principle of Consumer Protection (Article 76 of the Polish Constitution) in the Judgments of the Supreme Court

One of the constitutional principles is the principle of consumer protection expressed in Article 76 of the Constitution. The paper adopts a research hypothesis according to which this principle plays an important role in the process of application of the law by the Supreme Court and justification of its judgments. The hypothesis was verified through the analysis of several dozen judgments issued during the period of the Constitution. This analysis made it possible to confirm the hypothesis. The Supreme Court invokes the title principle in many of its judgments for persuasive purposes (to strengthen the argumentation contained in the justification) and also uses it as an interpretative guideline. The role of the title principle has increased after the entry into force of the provisions on the extraordinary complaint, as recourse to it creates the possibility to set aside final judgments whose issuance has led to the violation of consumer rights.

Gloss to the Decision of the Supreme Court of September 7, 2023, file ref. no. I NSW 15/23

On 7 September 2023, the Polish Supreme Court issued a decision on the complaint filed under Art. 161a Polish Electoral Code to the information from the National Electoral Commission of 30 August 2023, regarding the scope of powers of persons of trust and social election observers. Based on the decision of the Supreme Court, there are two fundamental issues that require consideration. Firstly, is the position of the Supreme Court correct, according to which the information of the NEC of 30 August 2023, which does not have the form of a resolution of the NEC, may be treated as an act subject to appeal under Art. 161a E.C. Secondly, does the Supreme Court rightly conclude that pursuant to Art. 103b § 1 point 1 of the E.C. in connection with Art. 103c § 2 of the E.C. it can be concluded that persons of trust and social observers have the right to observe other activities of district electoral commissions apart from the procedure of adopting voting protocols, determining voting and election results and preparing protocols. In order to find answers to the above questions, a formal legal method was used and the achievements of case law and literature were analyzed.