Judicial Activity of the Constitutional Tribunal and the Secondary Unconstitutionality of Law

In this article, on the one hand the subject of consideration will be the reasons of coming into being the secondary unconstitutionality as a consequence of entry into force a judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal. In the abovementioned context, we should first take into account the principle of accusatorial procedure, which may lead to merely piecemeal elimination of unconstitutionality. In turn, it may effect coming into being more negative consequences than being into force unconstitutional provision. Secondly, it seems that the type of judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal, which is the basis for classifying the norm as secondary unconstitutional, is of considerable importance. On the other hand, possibilities of prevention the secondary unconstitutionality by the Tribunal will be analysed. The question is, whether the Tribunal is able to mitigate the consequences of the principle of accusatorial procedure, particularly whether it is able to modify the scope of the challenged provisions. Regardless of this, judiciary instruments, which enable to form the consequences of the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal flexibly, seem to be more effective as measures to prevent secondary unconstitutionality. It is worth noting that some of this measures taken by the Tribunal are questioned in the literature.

Gloss to the Judgment of the Constitutional Court of January 11, 2024, file ref. no. K 23/23

The commentary concerns the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal of January 11, 2024, in which the Tribunal performed a self-consistent review and declared as unconstitutional a provision of the Law on the State Tribunal due to a particular interpretation of a legislative omission. The text indicates the objections to such a ruling and outlines the consequences of such a departure from the principle of accusatorial procedure.