This paper aims to present how logic may undermine a parliamentary assault on democratic institutions based on the analysis conducted with reference to the so-called Polish constitutional crisis. I analyse whether a law can be reviewed on the basis of this law itself. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal faced such a problem while passing the verdict of 9th March, 2016, regarding the constitutionality of the amendment to the Statute on the Constitutional Tribunal from 22nd December, 2015. This problem, called (...) a ‘verdict paradox’, was claimed to be a type of the Liar paradox. I argue that, contrary to the common view, the problem of the verdict paradox is not based on the Liar paradox; for this purpose, a logical analysis is applied to four variants of a reasoning with regard to the constitutionality of the said amendment. The distinction between two levels of analysis concerning emerging reasonings, namely an abstract level and a concrete level placed in the context of the legal system, is also introduced. This paper demonstrates that although only two variants of the reasoning concerning a law’s judicial review based on the law itself involve logical contradiction, the possibility of employing reasonings from other variants must be excluded, albeit due to alternative reasons. Therefore, the Constitutional Tribunal’s decision to avoid the verdict paradox by passing over the reviewed provisions in the review process was correct and might be perceived as an example of how logic and reason can defend the institutional guarantees of political freedom. (shrink)

This article discusses a rare instance of the highest national courts explicitly addressing traffic signs in their judgments or decisions. It critically examines the standpoint expressed by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Court, according to which the basic traffic sign categories in Poland—obligatory, prohibitory, informative and warning—are not separable [e.g. prima facie non-normative signs can also be normative ]. These courts formulated this idea when addressing the legal question concerning the applicability of legal provision penalizing failure to (...) comply with a traffic sign to parking a car without paying a fee in an area marked by an informative sign that indicates the need to charge a fee for parking. The article analyses and criticizes the relevant standpoint of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Court. It shows how many negative consequences can result from frivolous treatment and neglect of traffic signs. It also reconstructs some possible practical recommendations concerning not only traffic signs but also visualizations of legal rules in general. (shrink)

The use of specific language in the democratic Polish Constitution enacted on 2 April 1997 has created the essential differences in the status of religions and Churches in Poland to this in some other countries. It accepts the modern principles and values (tolerance, freedom, mutual independence of state and churches) but precludes the atheistic, hostile or indifferent to religions interpretations and implementations of these values and principles.

The paper examines the argumentation strategies of the Constitutional Tribunal’s case law on the reprivatisation of Warsaw real estate, a significant social issue in modern Poland. Following the post-war expropriation by the communist regime, legal successors of dispossessed individuals (both heirs and buyers of the claims to particular land) initiated widespread litigations to reclaim property and obtain compensation. This process led to the forceful eviction of thousands of tenants and the relocation of public institutions. This complex legal landscape lacks a (...) comprehensive regulation for property restitution, resulting in reprivatisation cases being handled solely as court disputes without central legislation, leading to a decentralised system of reprivatisation. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal, with its unique position within the legal system, has played a crucial role in shaping the legal framework and influencing the outcomes of reprivatisation cases. The study employs an analysis of all Constitutional Tribunal judgments related to the reprivatisation of Warsaw’s real estate, highlighting the evolution of the discourse of the Constitutional Tribunal in this regard. It consists of two parts: mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) was utilised to assess how Constitutional Tribunal judges justified their decisions (what types of argument they used), and the discourse analysis method was used to analyse how they approached reprivatisation in the real-world context. This study gives insight into the arguments and reasoning that the judges used and how their framing of the legal discourse changed over 30 years. (shrink)

W NINIEJSZYM opracowaniu analizuję klauzulę dobra wspólnego zawartą w art. 1 Konstytucji Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z 2 kwietnia 1997 r., zmierzając do uwyraźnienia, w jakim sensie można mówić o jej prawnonaturalnym charakterze (zatem i do zarysowania możliwych znaczeń zwrotu "prawnonaturalny charakter klauzuli dobra wspólnego") oraz do ujawnienia „momentów" prawnonaturalnych, które mogą wchodzić w grę przy interpretacji tej klauzuli.

W niniejszym opracowaniu zmierzać będę do uzasadnienia tezy, że przyj­ mowane procedury prawotwórcze i interpretacyjne nie tylko, co oczywiste, są legitymizowane wartościami typu formalnego, i co więcej, nie tylko war­ tościami typu materialnego, których realizacji służyć ma system prawny, ale także fundamentalnymi rozstrzygnięciami metaaksjologicznymi, dotyczącymi tego, jak istnieją i jak mogą być poznawane wartości. Zmierzając do realizacji tego celu uwyraźnię problematykę metaaksjologiczną w kontekście zagadnie­nia legitymizacji, formułując zasadnicze dylematy, które sprowadzają się do wyboru między koncepcją czystych wartości a koncepcją wartości (...) jako dóbr oraz między uznaniem obiektywnego ugruntowania wartości skorelowanym z uznaniem kognitywizmu metaetycznego a odrzuceniem obiektywnego ugruntowania i kognitywizmu. Zarysuję także zasadnicze możliwości ar­gumentacji w sprawie identyfikacji rozstrzygnięć w tym zakresie przyjętych w Konstytucji RP z 2 kwietnia 1997 roku. Zaznaczyć trzeba, że nie jest celem tego opracowania identyfikowanie konkretnych rozstrzygnięć aksjologicznych i metaaksjologicznych legitymizujących prawo, a jedynie wskazanie istotnych problemów i dylematów w kwestii legitymizacyjnych funkcji rozstrzygnięć metaaksjologicznych. (shrink)

The author poses a question: which of the two fundamental, constitutional values – common good or human dignity – can be considered to be the cornerstone, the unifying value in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland from 1997. The paper shows the crucial reasons for accepting each of these values as primary and also presents the underlying relationships between these values . The prominence of a given value for defining the aim of the constitution and the legal (...) order based on it was accepted as the most important aspect for determining the order of primacy. In respect of the direct aims of activities of public authorities and more broadly – of the aims of subjects whose activities are defined by the constitution – the primary value should be common good understood as certain social conditions of life which support human development. It defines the space in which other constitutional values, also human dignity, are integrated. Human dignity, however, the primary value defining human being, gives the reason why human development is a first and autonomous aim of the constitutional order. In this respect dignity has priority before common good. -/- Autor stawia pytanie o to, którą z fundamentalnych wartości konstytucyjnych – dobro wspólne czy godność człowieka – można uznać za wartość pierwszą i stanowiącą podstawę spójności aksjologicznej Konstytucji RP z 2 kwietnia 1997 roku. Wskazane są zasadnicze racje przemawiające za uznaniem każdej z tych wartości za wartość pierwszą i identyfikowane są zasadnicze relacje zachodzące między tymi wartościami. Za aspekt najistotniejszy dla ustalenia pierwszeństwa którejś z tych wartości uznana jest doniosłość danej wartości dla określenia celu konstytucji i opartego na niej porządku prawnego. Z punktu widzenia bezpośredniego celu działań władzy publicznej i szerzej – podmiotów, których działanie wyznaczone jest porządkiem konstytucyjnym, wartością tą jest dobro wspólne wyznaczające przestrzeń, w której integrowane są inne wartości konstytucyjne, z godnością włącznie. Dobro wspólne jest celem porządku konstytucyjnego ze względu na godność człowieka, która czyni jego rozwój pierwszym i szczególnym – autotelicznym dobrem. W tej perspektywie godność ma pierwszeństwo przed dobrem wspólnym. (shrink)

The results of an empirical study of 150 justifications of verdicts of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal are discussed. CT justifies its decisions mostly on authoritative references to previous decisions and other doxa- type arguments. It thus does not convince the audience of a decision's validity, but rather documents it. Further, the methodology changes depending on features of the case. The results are analysed using a conceptual framework of sociological systems theory. It is shown that CT's justification methodology ignores the (...) redundancy of the legal system, finding redundancy redundant. This is a risky strategy of decision- making, enabling political influence. (shrink)

The main objective of the paper is to present a model of the good practices of deliberative cooperation in a parliamentary setting. This goal is achieved through applying the three functions of the deliberative system—epistemic, ethical and democratic —to an analysis of cooperation between different stakeholders during the work of a Polish Parliamentary Subcommittee. They are used as an evaluative tool for analysing the cooperation of MPs, members of the public and representatives of the government. The paper analyses a (...) concrete example of the work of the Permanent Subcommittee on the government bill amending the Act on Public Benefit Activity and Voluntary Work in the Polish Parliament. This concrete example is presented as a model of good practices when it comes to deliberative cooperation between representatives of the authorities and citizens aiming at the development of shared practical judgement. The paper consists of three parts. In the first, a systemic approach to deliberative democracy is briefly introduced, and the history of the work on the bill is outlined. The main part consists of an analysis of the three speeches of three main stakeholders in the legislative process, from the perspective of their view of legislative deliberations, and in terms of the three functions of deliberative system. In the conclusions, four main issues are analysed with reference to the presented legislative deliberations: 1. Legislative committees as mixed deliberative spheres; 2. Internal/external deliberation; 3. The distinction between stakeholders/ordinary citizens; and 4. Deliberative stance/deliberative mindset. (shrink)

This article deals with basic changes in Polish society over past 20 years. On the basis of sociological surveys, the author attempts to answer the following questions: to what extent has systemic change brought about significant changes in social stratification? In which dimensions did it take place? What are the consequences of these changes for individuals and the social system? How does Polish society differ from others? As for social stratification, the only clear and unambiguous tendencies were growing (...) inequality and more marked effects of educational credentials on incomes. Contrary to expectations, barriers to mobility have not become more rigid, nor is there any clear evidence of social origins mattering more for educational achievement. Transformations in social structure have been accompanied by rising discontent with material conditions, the government, and the system as a whole. Interestingly, this wave runs counter to positive evaluations in the private sphere, displayed in relatively high self-esteem and satisfaction with friendships and family life. These optimistic attitudes contrasted with disapproval of the political class, and with the workings of democracy. The degree of legitimization of the political system in Poland appears to be the lowest among 21 European societies. When compared with the capitalist West, this constitutes one of the obstacles to modernization along Western lines. (shrink)

This essay traces the Greek and Roman roots of Polish sixteenth- to eighteenth-century political thought by discussing the Polish nobility’s concept of the “Golden Freedom”. By focusing on the Roman and the Greek concepts of liberty and the mixed constitution, it argues that the Golden Freedom, a notion central to the Polish-Lithuanian nobility’s self-identification, was based on Roman political ideals and practices that were incompatible with the political reality of the Commonwealth.

Legal studies and consequently legal history focus on constitutional documents, believing in a nominalist autonomy of constitutional semantics.Reconsidering Constitutional Formation in the late 18th and 19th century, kept historic constitutions from being simply log-books for political experts through a functional approach to the interdependencies between constitution and public discourse. Sovereignty had to be 'believed' by the subjects and the political élites. Such a communicative orientation of constitutional processesbecame palpable in the 'religious' affinities of the constitutional preambles. They were held (...) as 'creeds' of a new order, not only due to their occasional recourse to divine authority, but rather due to the claim for eternal validity contexts of constitutional guarantees. The communication dependency of constitutions was of less concern in terms of the preamble than the constituents' big worries about government organisation. Their indecisiveness between monarchical and popular sovereignty was established through the discrediting of the Republic in the Jacobean reign of terror and the 'renaissance' of the monarchy in the military resistance against the French revolutionary and later Napoleonic campaigns. The constitutional formation as a legal act of constituting could therefore defend the monarchy from the threat of the people (Albertine Statute 1848), could be a legal decision of a national constituent assembly (Belgian Constitution 1831), could borrow from the old liberties (Polish May Constitution 1791) or try to remain in between by referring to the Nation as sovereign (French September Constitution 1791, Cádiz Constitution 1812). Common to all contexts is the use of national sovereignty as a legal starting point. The consequent differentiation between constituent and constituted power manages to justify the self-commitment of political power in legal terms. National sovereignty is the synonym for the juridification of sovereignty by means of the constitution. The novelty of the constitutions of the late 18th and 19th century is the normativity, the positivity of the constitutional law as one unified law, to be the measure for the legality of all other law. Therefore ReConFort will continue with the precedence of constitution. (www.reconfort.eu). (shrink)

The paper analyzes the correspondence between Prince Evgenii Troubetzkoy and Marian Zdziechowski, from 1905–1916 (not yet published). The correspondence focuses on the question of Russian-Polish relations and the possibility of Poland’s autonomy within the Russian Empire or the restoration of Poland’s independence. With the clarification of these two thinkers’ positions on the “Polish question,” the paper examines their concepts of nationalism and patriotism, their attitude to the idea of Slavic unity and the role of Russia as well as (...) the correlation between their political views and their religious outlook. It demonstrates how the “fascination” of Polish intellectuals with Russian constitutional democrats in 1905 was replaced by disappointment due to the failure of the First Russian revolution, and then by serious disagreements during the First World War. The conclusion states that despite their disagreements on the “Polish question,” Evgenii Troubetzkoy and Marian Zdziechowski retained respect for each other, and their correspondence reveals new facets of their personalities. (shrink)

This article focuses on questions rarely spoken of openly or written about in Poland. The article investigates what is behind such silence and tells of invisibility. The silence regarding lesbians in Poland is meaningful and reveals a lot about the concept of the Polish nation. This article examines Polish nationalistic discourse, which largely avoids the question of a homosexual orientation. Moreover, the heterosexual orientation is taken for granted as the only possible and natural one. Therefore, invisibility is a (...) major theme of the article. The author illustrates this invisibility by examining two texts: the latest edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the new Polish Constitution. Both discourses are interwoven and deal with a very rigid concept of the Polish nation. The author goes on to look at how these discourses are perceived by Polish lesbians and how this concept of the Polish nation affects their daily lives. The article draws largely on the results of the study that the author conducted in 1997 regarding lesbian existence in Poland. She bases her discussion on excerpts from interviews and questionnaires distributed among Polish lesbians. The author argues that the silence and invisibility of lesbians in official discourse influence Polish opinion about them, thus reinforcing homophobia and increasing pressure on lesbians to remain invisible. (shrink)

Recognizing inherent and inalienable nature of dignity and universality of certain values, the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, introduces to the foundations of Polish legal system some elements of natural law which may be used for application of the Basic Law. Constitutional recognition of these elements only makes sense on the assumption of their cognizability. Therefore, as an important element of constitutional concept of natural law is taken the recognition of the argument of cognitivism according to which (...) moral assessments may have the nature of judgments and truth qualification (they may be true or false). In the course of application of the constitution, norms of natural-law character and natural-law justification. Since dignity and the essence of freedoms and rights based on dignity are the only inviolable values recognized by the constitution, the arguments of natural law lead to a far-going reinterpretation of constitutional norms. The norm of natural law protecting inviolable values will have precedence in the event of collision with norms protecting other values, also with constitutional norms. Even if such a norm is formulated on the basis of the provisions of the constitution, in fact natural law is given higher rank than elements based only on enacted law. Despite that, reliability of a legally established order does not seem to be radically endangered. -/- Konstytucja RP uznając przyrodzoność i niezbywalność godności oraz uniwersalność niektórych wartości, wprowadza do podstaw całego polskiego systemu prawnego elementy prawnonaturalne, które mogą być wykorzystane w stosowaniu konstytucji. Konstytucyjne uznanie takich elementów ma sens przy założeniu ich poznawalności, stąd istotnym elementem konstytucyjnej koncepcji prawa naturalnego jest uznanie tezy kognitywizmu głoszącej, że oceny moralne mogą mieć charakter sądów i kwalifikację prawdziwościową – mogą być prawdziwe lub fałszywe. W procesie stosowania konstytucji mogą być formułowane normy o charakterze prawnonaturalnym oraz uzasadnienia prawnonaturalne. Ponieważ jedynymi wartościami uznanymi w konstytucji za nienaruszalne jest godność oraz istota wolności i praw, których godność jest źródłem, argumentacja prawnonaturalna może prowadzić do daleko idącej reinterpretacji norm konstytucyjnych. Norma prawnonaturalna chroniąca warunki konieczne poszanowania godności lub istoty wolności i praw będzie miała pierwszeństwo w razie kolizji z normami chroniącymi inne wartości, także z normami konstytucyjnymi. Choć norma taka będzie formułowana na podstawie przepisów konstytucji, to jednak faktycznie prawo naturalne uzyskuje wyższą rangę od elementów opartych jedynie na stanowieniu. Mimo tego bezpieczeństwo prawne nie wydaje się być radykalnie zagrożone. O prawnonaturalnym charakterze normy i uzasadnienia decyduje oparcie w ocenach moralnych, które pretendują do bycia sądami, do bycia prawdziwymi lub fałszywymi. Z punktu widzenia stosowania konstytucji i wymogu intersubiektywnej komunikowalności i kontrolowalności dookreślania treści prawnonaturalnych, dla nadania ocenom charakteru sądów istotny jest kształt procedur i argumentacji prowadzących do tego dookreślenia. Powinny to być procedury i argumentacja typowe dla dyskursu mającego na celu sformułowanie prawdziwych sądów. Maksymalizowana powinna być dyskursywność takich procedur, a podstawą rozstrzygnięcia powinien być, jeśli to tylko możliwe, konsens. Nie mogą być uważane za rozstrzygające argumenty odwołujące się do woli indywidualnej lub zbiorowej, reakcji emocjonalnych, stopnia rozpowszechnienia danej oceny czy do tradycji kulturowej. (shrink)

Stanisław August Poniatowski (1732–1798) was the last king of Poland. He reigned from 1764 to 1795 and, during this time the first Polish constitution, the first in Europe, was established. These excerpts come from Hen’s book My Friend the King (Mój Przyjaciel Król). The book is narrated by the fictional Gaston Fabre, who is a close confidant of the King and is privy to all the turmoil and machinations at Court in months and years preceding the signing of (...) the constitution. (shrink)

This second volume of ReConFort, published open access, addresses the decisive role of constitutional normativity, and focuses on discourses concerning the legal role of constitutional norms. Taken together with ReConFort I (National Sovereignty), it calls for an innovative reassessment of constitutional history drawing on key categories to convey the legal nature of the constitution itself (national sovereignty, precedence, justiciability of power, judiciary as constituted power). In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, constitutional normativity began to complete the legal (...) fixation of the entire political order. This juridification in one constitutional text resulted in a conceptual differentiation from ordinary law, which extends to alterability and justiciability. The early expressions of this 'new order of the ages' suggest an unprecedented and irremediable break with European legal tradition, be it with British colonial governance or the French ancien régime. In fact, while the shift to constitutions as a hierarchically 'higher' form of positive law was a revolutionary change, it also drew upon old liberties. The American constitutional discourse, which was itself heavily influenced by British common law, in turn served as an inspiration for a variety of constitutional experiments - from the French Revolution to Napoleon's downfall, in the halls of the Frankfurt Assembly, on the road to a unified Italy, and in the later theoretical discourse of twentieth-century Austria. If the constitution states the legal rules for the law-making process, then its Kelsian primacy is mandatory. Also included in this volume are the French originals and English translations of two vital documents. The first - Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès' Du Jury Constitutionnaire (1795) - highlights an early attempt to reconcile the democratic values of the French Revolution with the pragmatic need to legally protect the Revolution. The second - the 1812 draft of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland - presents the 'constitutional propaganda' of the Russian Tsar Alexander I to bargain for the support of the Lithuanian and Polish nobility. These documents open new avenues of research into Europe's constitutional history: one replete with diverse contexts and national experiences, but above all an overarching motif of constitutional decisiveness that served to complete the juridification of sovereignty. (www.reconfort.eu). (shrink)

Certain works in the most recent Polish constitutional law literature suggest that there is acceptance of the principle or the concept of autonomous interpretation of a constitution (autonomy of interpretation of constitutional terms). The Constitutional Tribunal also makes reference to this in numerous rulings. Paradoxically, however, that concept is not very popular in legal theory. It might seem that Polish legal theoreticians and philosophers do not appreciate the concept of interpretation of a constitution devised through practice (...) with the support of constitutional law doctrine. It might, however, mean that opinions on autonomous interpretation of Polish Constitution are nothing more than rhetorical arguments formulated ad hoc not a coherent concept or a theory. This text is an attempt to analyse this concept and its potential in discussions surrounding application of the Polish Constitution. (shrink)

An axiological analysis of the basis of the 1997 Constitution of the Republic of Poland, determined mainly in the Preamble, makes it possible to put forward a thesis that this axiology is not, at least in reference to the principle, eclectic. In respect of the meta-axiological settlements, this is a tradition of natural-law type, recognizing the objective grounding of values and law. The accepted solutions are also convergent with the axiology typical of the international protection of human rights. -/- (...) Résumé L’analyse des fondements axiologiques de la Constitution polonaise de 1997, inscrits avant tout dans le préambule, permet de formuler la thèse selon laquelle cette axiologie n’est pas, en principe, éclectique. La réflexion sur les valeurs s’inscrit dans la vision classique des fondements du droit, remontant à l’antiquité. Partant de là, se dégage une tradition juridique appuyée sur le droit naturel, reconnaissant la force objective des valeurs et du droit. Ces conclusions rejoignent l’axiologie classique de la protection internationale des droits de l’Homme. -/- Zusammenfassung Die Analyse der vor allem durch die Präambel definierten axiologischen Grundlagen der Verfassung der Republik Polen von 1997 ermöglicht die Aufstellung der These, dass diese Axiologie nicht eklektisch ist, zumindest nicht prinzipiell. Hier enthüllt sich ein Denken von den Werten, das sich in die klassische, bis in die Antike zurückreichende Reflexion über die Grundlagen des Rechts einfügt. Wegen der metaaxiologischen Entscheidungen ist das eine Tradition naturrechtlichen Typs, die die objektive Begründung der Werte und des Rechts anerkennt. Die angenommenen Lösungen stimmen auch mit der für den internationalen Schutz der Menschenrechte typischen Axiologie überein. (shrink)

Background: The aim of the presented series of studies was to test the factor structure and assess the psychometric properties of the Resilience Scale 25 in the Polish population. It was developed and tested during the course of four independent studies analysing various aspects of the validation of the RS 25 questionnaire’s Polish version.Method: Study 1 concerned the procedure for developing the Polish language version. Study 2 consisted of reliability tests and a confirmatory factor analysis. In Studies (...) 3 and 4, the validity was assessed by examining the relationship between resilience and the assessment of ego-resiliency, the risk of depression, styles of coping with stress, perceived stress, and satisfaction with life.Results: The presented research results obtained using the measure indicate that it can be considered to be a reliable and valid research tool. A five-factor solution showed a good fit to the data: χ2/df = 12.85; RMSEA = 0.066 ; GFI = 0.90; AGFI = 0.90. An assessment of the internal consistency was carried out on the basis of Cronbach’s alpha. The values achieved were satisfactory and indicate acceptable internal reliability of the questionnaire and of the five dimensions: purpose ; equanimity ; self-reliance ; perseverance ; and existential aloneness. In accordance with the predictions and earlier studies, resilience was correlated positively with ego-resiliency, a task-oriented style of coping with stress, and life satisfaction and negatively with perceived stress, the risk of depression, and an emotion-oriented coping style.Conclusion: The Polish version of the RS 25 allows the assessment of the intensity of resilience as a general indicator and its five constituting dimensions. Such a measurement seems to be important from the perspective of assessing the role of an individual’s resources in clinical psychology, health psychology, and psychotherapy. (shrink)

The publication of this book constitutes a real service to students of logic and of the foundations and philosophy of mathematics. Here, "under one roof," are translations of seventeen of the most important papers on logic and metalogic by Ajdukiewicz, Chwistek, Jaskowski, Jordan, Lesniewski, Lukasiewicz, S upecki, Sobocinski, and Wajsberg. All but two of them appear in English for the first time. Notably absent are papers by Alfred Tarski, but this omission is fully justified in view of the publisher's well-known (...) companion volume devoted exclusively to this most important logician. Within the contents of this volume, the major topics covered are various systems of sentential logic ; philosophically-motivated foundational studies ; miscellaneous papers on logical syntax, intuitionism and metalogic; and historical studies of the development of Polish logic. One cautionary note: the protothetic notation of Lesniewski is extremely difficult to read. Before undertaking that author's articles, the reader will do well to turn to the explanatory footnotes in the subsequent articles by Sobocinski. The book has a bibliography, but no index. In general, this is a worthwhile and long overdue book.—H. P. K. (shrink)

The early 18th century saw the beginnings of Russian military occupation of Poland, followed by a secret agreement by the neighboring countries, meant to maintain a political status quo in the internal affairs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Then, the dynamics of the economic transformations of the European continent led to a permanent economic deadlock, particularly in the regions with large agricultural areas, such as Poland. Five years from the turn of the 18th century the Polish polity disappeared from (...) the map of Europe for 123 years. Analyzing the relationships and causes of a number of phenomena related to Old Poland is made all the more difficult by some historical processes which blow some ritual events of limited importance out of proportion, such as theadoption of the Constitution of 3 May ; these also glorify the past of the society and the state as a “golden myth” of social harmony in relationships obtaining within the classes and between them. (shrink)

Who and how revised Marxism in Poland? The simple answer is that it was done by young intellectuals seeing themselves as obligated to social and political activity, eager to participate in the process of the constitution of a new postwar Communist society. Marxism was for them a philosophical world-view and a political program rising hopes for a better socio-economic reality. Revisionists were committed Communists and their attitude toward Marxism was almost religious. Marxism, Promethean and scientific at the same time, (...) was supposed to replace religion, for which the radically secular revisionists saw no place in the new society. (See: Mikołajczyk 2013, p. 44-48) After the shock of 1956 they stuck by the slogan: ’socialism–yes, distortions–no,’ they thought that “Marxist socialism was possible without Leninist political forms, that Communism might be attacked within «the framework of Marxism»,” and they “believed for some time ... that Stalinism was curable in the sense that Communism could be restored or «democratized» without questioning its foundations” (Kolakowski 1978, p. 461). They saw themselves in an elitist way, i.e., as true and devoted Marxists fighting with dogmas, orthodoxy, myths, and unfounded faith both within Marxism-Leninism and outside it. They were willing to accept the position of sectarians, heretics, or apostates. Their political and ideological involvement forced them to attack pre-war but still active Polish philosophers of the Lvov-Warsaw School and other nonMarxist thinkers (Roman Ingarden, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Stanisław Ossowski), who were classified as “bourgeois thinkers” unable to understand and assimilate Marxism. (shrink)

The book is comprised of three components. The first component analyses the creative contribution to the theory of imperatives and norms provided by 20th-century Polish researchers. The second component summarizes their reflections and considerations. The third component is an anthology of the classic writings of Polish authors of the time; it constitutes an illustration of the first part and indicates that their research covered practically the whole scope of this theory. Author Jacek Jadacki (born 1946) is professor at (...) Warsaw University. His scholarly production includes approximately hundred works spanning almost every domain in philosophy: from logic, through ontology, epistemology, aesthetics and ethics, to the history of these disciplines. Among his more than twenty books are Possible Ontologies (with Zdzislaw Augustynek; 1993), From the Viewpoint of the Lvov-Warsaw School (2003), and Polish Analytical Philosophy (2009). His pupils include such well-known figures of modern Polish thought as Anna Brozek, Mariusz Grygianiec, Joanna Odrowaz-Sypniewska, and Mieszko Talasiewicz. (shrink)

The ruling of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of October 22, 2020 introduced a near-complete ban on abortion in Poland, as it removed from the law the embryopathological condition that allowed abortion when the fetus had an incurable, severe disease. The ruling raises a number of questions regarding the recognition of international protection of human rights, the equal protection status of human rights, and the principle of trust in the state. The Tribunal’s ruling resulted in massive public protests in Poland, (...) the adoption of condemnatory resolutions by the European Parliament, and the submission of a new bill by members of the parliament from the opposition groups. The purpose of the paper is to show the questionable ruling issued by the Constitutional Tribunal from the perspective of protection of human rights and the attempts of opposition MPs to change the legal order. The Tribunal’s ruling violates women’s human rights and is therefore a form of discrimination against women. Attempts by opposition MPs to “civilize” the right to abortion have proved unsuccessful. The jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights may establish a breakthrough, as the Tribunal has received a complaint concerning the prevention of abortion on embryopathological grounds in connection with the ruling of the Constitutional Court of October 22, 2020. (shrink)

The article deals with relations between the individual and human rights on the one hand, and the State on the other, in the context of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The author poses the question whether the idea of subordination of the State to the individual is really a central idea of that constitution. He puts forward many arguments against such suggestion. These arguments relate, above all, to the arrangement of the constitution: a chapter concerning (...) human rights is chapter II, while chapter I deals with foundation of the State; the goals of the State are specified in the preamble including the following initial phrase “the existence and future of Poland as our Homeland” and in Article 5 where human rights are as subject of protection by the State is mentioned after independence and integrity of [its] territory; a general concept of human rights protection adopted in the constitution is dominated by the structures typical of law in its objective sense; the way of regulation admissible limitations on human rights differs from international standards; possibility of claiming human rights is constitutionally guaranteed, mostly by constitutional complaint which is above all aimed at correction of legal system, rather than claiming of rights by the individual; Article 1 (“The Republic of Poland shall be the common good of all its citizens”) interpreted as referring to Article 1 paragraph 1 of the April Constitution of 1935, one of the main ideas of which was precedence of the State over the individual. He also analyses the arguments in favour of the recognition of the idea of subordination of the State. Nevertheless, they cannot be accepted as resolving the question of whether it is a central idea of the constitution. These arguments include in particular: the principle of subsidiarity contained in the preamble, even if it has not been appropriately emphasized there; recognition of inherent and inalienable dignity of the person, but it was not until Article 30 that this provision has been contained and it does not determine the relations between the human dignity and rights and the State. The author suggests that the only conclusive way to justify the subordination of the State in relation to the individual as a central idea of the constitution is by means of Article 1. Taking into account, above all, preparatory work, we should reject the interpretation of that article referring to the April (1935) Constitution. Essential interpretative context may be found in preparatory work and social teachings of the Catholic Church, referred to therein. In that case, the common good means the entirety of the conditions of social life which favour the human development. These conditions include above all the respect for human dignity. Such interpretation of Article 1 gives priority to proposals on what the State should be to serve the individual rather than to safeguard obligations of citizens in relation to the State. (shrink)

In the science of administrative and constitutional law, administration science and many other sciences, including political science, it is widely accepted that the basic, inherent feature of a municipality, deciding the essence of the territorial self-government unit as an entity of public administration, is the self-reliance it is entitled to. The self-reliance of territorial self-government units is even defined as a constitutional norm.In principle, self-reliance is perceived as a fundamental attribute of a decentralised public authority and constitutes one of the (...) fundamental systemic principles of the Republic of Poland. It was formulated expressis verbis in art. 165 par. 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, which states that the self-reliance of territorial self-government units is subject to judicial protection, meaning that TSGUs can defend themselves against illegal attempts, not grounded in the law to interfere in their self-reliance. This protection seems to encompass both the private-law and public-law spheres of territorial self-government activity.The essence and guarantees of territorial self-government units’ self-reliance also arise from other constitutional principles, including the aforementioned decentralisation principle, subsidiarity principle, separation of powers, supremacy of the nation and democratic state under rule of law.The goal of this article is to interpret the principle of municipal self-reliance in the context of constitutional principles of law, in the light of the Polish Constitution. The studies were conducted based on analysis of normative acts, doctrinal views and case law. (shrink)

The early 18th century saw the beginnings of Russian military occupation of Poland, followed by a secret agreement by the neighboring countries, meant to maintain a political status quo in the internal affairs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Then, the dynamics of the economic transformations of the European continent led to a permanent economic deadlock, particularly in the regions with large agricultural areas, such as Poland. Five years from the turn of the 18th century the Polish polity disappeared from (...) the map of Europe for 123 years. Analyzing the relationships and causes of a number of phenomena related to Old Poland is made all the more difficult by some historical processes which blow some ritual events of limited importance out of proportion, such as theadoption of the Constitution of 3 May (1791; particularly due to its content being rather reactionary); these also glorify the past of the society and the state as a “golden myth” of social harmony in relationships obtaining within the classes and between them. (shrink)

The larger part of Yearbook 6 of the Institute Vienna Circle constitutes the proceedings of a symposium on Alfred Tarski and his influence on and interchanges with the Vienna Circle, especially those on and with Rudolf Carnap and Kurt Gödel. It is the first time that this topic has been treated on such a scale and in such depth. Attention is mainly paid to the origins, development and subsequent role of Tarski's definition of truth. Some contributions are primarily historical, others (...) analyze logical aspects of the concept of truth. Contributors include Anita and Saul Feferman, Jan Wolenski, Jan Tarski and Hans Sluga. Several Polish logicians contributed: Gzegorczyk, Wójcicki, Murawski and Rojszczak. The volume presents entirely new biographical material on Tarski, both from his Polish period and on his influential career in the United States: at Harvard, in Princeton, at Hunter, and at the University of California at Berkeley. The high point of the analysis involves Tarski's influence on Carnap's evolution from a narrow syntactical view of language, to the ontologically more sophisticated but more controversial semantical view. Another highlight involves the interchange between Tarski and Gödel on the connection between truth and proof and on the nature of metalanguages. The concluding part of Yearbook 6 includes documentation, book reviews and a summary of current activities of the Institute Vienna Circle. Jan Tarski introduces letters written by his father to Gödel; Paolo Parrini reports on the Vienna Circle's influence in Italy; several reviews cover recent books on logical empiricism, on Gödel, on cosmology, on holistic approaches in Germany, and on Mauthner. (shrink)

It appears that we know surprisingly little about how judges frame linguistically the rationale behind their decisions and how such texts are structured. Using the concept of rhetorical moves, this paper adopts a genre-based approach to examine the rhetorical structure of legal justifications provided in the decisions of the Polish Constitutional Court. The goal of the study is to verify the claim that the way justifications are drafted is becoming more and more uniform and conventional. The results show that (...) there is a common core of rhetorical structure realized by means of recurrent functional segments of text. This paper proposes a prototypical move structure of a Constitutional Tribunal justification and it argues that that the way justifications are drafted are subject to very concrete, even if not explicitly stated constraints. (shrink)

Faced with high levels of unemployment and discrimination in Poland, Polish women have made up a very large proportion of those leaving the former Communist states of central Europe, to work in EU member states. They have constituted a large undocumented migrant workforce in Europe, usually working as domestic workers and carers in the informal economy. Poland’s membership of the EU is starting to regulate Polish women’s work abroad and to increase their access to better paid and skilled (...) work in the formal labour market. New market-led immigration policies in Europe are still selective and restricted however. What Polish women really need from the EU is help in securing a new framework of gender equality and equal treatment in Poland that offers hope for an improvement in their rights at home. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The main aim of this article is to investigate the reception of Owen’s ideas in the nineteenth-century Polish context. I argue that Owen’s ideas did not attract as much attention as those of, amongst others, Charles Fourier, Félicité de Lamennais, or – in the second half of the century – Karl Marx. Despite being overshadowed by other Romantic socialists, Owen’s reception in Poland can be described as having been marked by three phases. Though we can determine the general (...) direction of this reception, we can only demarcate the rough time frames of it. The first phase may be traced from 1830 until around 1860. It was marked by Polish radicals’ rejection of Owen’s ideas. The phase, which may be dated from roughly 1848, saw the reception of and critical engagement with Owen’s ideas by Polish conservatives. Ironically, conservatives represented the first political current in the Polish context, which made a real effort to analyse and engage with his ideas seriously. Finally, the third phase of reception was constituted by Marxist and modern socialists, who, in seeing themselves at the end of an historical teleology, read Owen, and other early socialists, as their ideological forefathers. (shrink)

The theory of speech acts, formulated by Austin and developed by Searle, is widely applied to analyse and classify various speech acts. In this paper it is assumed that legal texts, especially normative acts i.e. constitutions and statutes, are direct speech acts. Normative acts are linguistic entities and they do not exist outside the language, thus the theory of speech acts may be applied to examine them. They are also considered to be performative utterances according to Austin’s classification. In this (...) paper the intention is to compare Cypriot, Greek and Polish normative acts on the basis of the so-called classical theory of speech acts and typology of performativity exponents. The author will compare various methods of expressing performativity in reference to the meaning conveyed by them. Furthermore, other exponents of performativity occurring in the analysed texts shall also be compared. The results obtained while performing the analysis and comparison may be significant for scholars, lawyers and translators. (shrink)

The aim of this research paper is to examine Latin in the context of legal translation between the Polish, English and French languages. Latin ap- pears in contemporary legal discourse in the form of maxims, short phrases and terms. Even though it constitutes an integral element of legal drafting, Latin often attracts little attention from legal translators. It is falsely assumed that Latin elements of the text do not require translation due to several miscon- ceptions related to the Latin (...) language. Firstly, Latin is generally perceived as a global language with no local variations in form. Secondly, Latin is believed to be the universal point of reference in international communication. Thirdly, Latin legal phrases or maxims are thought to originate solely from Roman law, thus they express only Roman legal thought. In the first part of the paper we will address the above issues. To this end, we will briefly discuss the historical presence of Latin in the European lin- guistic context. We will then present the results of our research into the use of Latinisms in the Polish, French and English legal systems. The subject of our research was a set of twenty Latin maxims and phrases that frequently appear in the decisions of the Polish courts. During the first stage of the analysis, the items in question were verified in Legalis. The second stage of the research involved the consultation of monolingual dictionaries of French and English legal language to verify the universal charac- ter of the analyzed Latinisms. During the third stage of the analysis, we looked at the practical use of Latinisms in online databases of legal texts. The paper concludes with some comments on Latinisms in lexicographical publications and online sources. (shrink)

SummaryThe problem of conquests and territorial expansion, including their interpretation, evaluation, and legitimisation, has been crucial for European national historiographies. Consequently, attempts by the Holy Roman emperors, particularly of the Saxon and Hohenstaufen dynasties, to control Italy and Burgundy were hotly debated among nineteenth-century German historians, while Poland's union with Lithuania, and the annexation of the vast territories of the east which followed, was a central topic for Polish historians of the time. Modern historians of historiography in both countries (...) have carefully analysed these narratives, emphasising their ideological and political contexts, such as their involvement in the Grossdeutsch versus Kleindeutsch controversy and the controversy between the so-called Cracow and Warsaw historical schools. In this paper I propose a comparative analysis of these two discourses which dealt with analogical issues and, as I demonstrate, developed with a parallel dynamic. Such an analysis, I argue, allows an escape from the paradigm of national exceptionalism, and the discovery of what was typical or, perhaps, constitutive of the discourse on territorial expansion of the time, instead of focusing on the uniqueness of the national context. This analysis embraces the conceptualisation, argumentation, and rhetoric of those nineteenth-century German and Polish historians discussing the expansion of the medieval Holy Empire and early-modern Poland. Moreover, it locates their interpretations within an international context of a broader Western historiographical tradition, involving issues of domination, cultural transfer, and colonialism. Finally, it examines the parallel mechanism of searching for, advocating, and perpetuating the idea of uniqueness of national history. (shrink)

The article takes up the difficult problem of the so-called disobedience of judges against the background of the experiences of the Polish departure from constitutional democracy in 2015–2020. The special role and responsibility of a judge in the state imposes restrictions on her freedom of opinion in the public sphere. Openly manifesting opposition to government policy, which in the case of an ordinary citizen is only the implementation of human rights and freedoms, may be described as controversial and contrary (...) to applicable ethical regulations. The main thesis of this paper is the assertion that although judges who act as impartial arbitrators in disputes should generally refrain from ostentatiously opposing the actions of political authorities, they are not deprived of the possibility of protest. Also in the exercise of office, and not outside the sphere of their duties, judges should take into account overriding moral values that should be implemented by the legal order, and not the values or declarations guiding the government policies. The integrity of the judge, which prescribes restraint in statements and actions in the public sphere, as well as the care for the dignity of the office held, should not be confused with absolute subordination to the legislature or the executive, even if the judge is obliged to apply the law. The traditional attitude of the members of the judiciary, consisting in focusing only on the application of the law in individual cases and the lack of any political involvement, is being reviewed in the face of the spread of majoritarianism and the law abuse as normal techniques of exercising public authority. The disobedience of judges—although difficult to defend at first sight—may seem to be the only possible way to draw public attention to the corruption of the state system. The ‘disobediant’ judges can even be assigned the role of ‘whistleblowers’, which should help to ease their legal liability or their future rehabilitation. (shrink)

Justifying the existence of professional ethics in medicine is usually connected with the traditions of a profession and with a humanistic dimension of these ethics, pointing at the same time to their culture-forming character. With such an attitude, professional ethics is treated as a part of all mankind’s output, and its teaching turns out to be an important element of preparation for taking part in culture. Taking into account the cultural meaning of professional ethics, one should notice that all discussions (...) about the character of relations of medicine and ethics exceed the very health care system. The dilemma outlined in the article deals with the problem whether the existence of medical ethics requires external regulations or is this also a creation of the very representatives of medicine and only they can formulate it. If the latter is to be assumed, ethics in medicine would have to be independent of other detailed ethics and it would not need to be included in any other more general theory. In the first solution, medical ethics is becoming a part of general ethics and, therefore, it would be justified to include it in a more general theory – bioethics. The authors indicate that professional ethics does not limit freedom of the staff but gives a special opportunity to use it. Records constituting its contents are mostly standardized by a professional group which sets criteria of recruitment on its own and general duties resting on their members. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to revise the dominating narrative of communism as male generational history. With the aid of memoirs of communist women, many of whom started their political activity before WWII and belonged to the power-wielding elites of Stalinist Poland, the author shows that the former constituted an integral part of the generation which had planned a revolution and ultimately took over power. Their texts were imbued with a matrilineal perspective on the history of communism: the authors (...) emphasized that other women had strongly motivated them to become involved in politics. However, the memoirs revealed something more: as an attempt to establish new models of emancipation and to transmit them to younger generations of women, they were to rekindle the memory of women as the active agent of that part of Polish history which contemporary feminists refuse to remember. (shrink)

STRESZCZENIE Opracowanie zmierza do udzielenia odpowiedzi na pytanie, czym – z punktu widzenia struktury procesu wykładni i struktury wchodzących w grę wartości konstytucyjnych – różni się ograniczanie wolności i praw w ramach stosowania „zwykłych środków konstytucyjnych”, od ograniczania wolności i praw dopuszczalnego w stanach nadzwyczajnych. Podjęta zostaje problematyka dotyczącą kwestii materialnych, a poza zakresem rozważanych zagadnień pozostają kwestie dotyczące formalnych warunków dopuszczalności ograniczeń, jak publiczne ogłoszenie zagrożenia czy możliwość wprowadzania ograniczeń w aktach podustawowych. Stawiane tezy są polemiczne wobec poglądów, że (...) zawieszenie wolności lub praw jest skrajnym typem ograniczania i następuje wtedy, gdy wolności czy prawa „już nie ma”, lub że zawieszenie zakłada ograniczenie istoty wolności lub prawa. Okazuje się, że można sensownie mówić o zawieszaniu wolności lub praw także wówczas, gdy są one ograniczane w niewielkim tylko stopniu. Ponadto, możliwe jest zawieszanie, które nie prowadzi do ograniczenia istoty wolności lub prawa. Argumentuje się, że istotą zawieszania wolności lub praw w stanach nadzwyczajnych jest zakwestionowanie podstawowego ich przymiotu, jakim jest – uznawana w prawie międzynarodowym – nienaruszalność „całych” poszczególnych praw człowieka, która jest czymś innym od nienaruszalności ich istoty. Przy okazji prowadzona jest refleksja teoretycznoprawna nad zagadnieniem zawieszania wolności lub praw. Zawieszenie okazuje się czymś istotnie różnym od czasowej utraty mocy obowiązującej przepisów dotyczących wolności czy praw. Ich ciągłe obowiązywanie znajduje wyraz, na przykład, w zasadzie proporcjonalności mającej zastosowanie do zawieszanych wolności lub praw. -/- Extraordinary Measures and Restrictions of Constitutional Freedoms and Rights ABSTRACT The study aims to answer the question on the difference between limitation of freedoms and rights in ordinary situations and their suspension (derogation) when extraordinary measures are introduced. This question is considered from the point of view of the structure of the interpretation process and the structure of the constitutional values. Consideration is given to issues relating to material aspects. However, issues relating to formal conditions for the admissibility of restrictions, such as public announcement of a threat or the possibility of introducing restrictions in sub-statutory acts, are not examined. The theses put forward are critical of the view that suspension of freedoms or rights is an extreme type of limitation and a freedom or a right "is no longer there", and of the view that suspension presupposes violation of the essence of freedom or right. It can be argued that it makes sense to talk about the suspension of freedoms or rights also when they are only slightly restricted. Moreover, it is possible to suspend a freedom or a right without violating their essence. It is argued that suspension of freedoms or rights leads to questioning of their basic characteristic that is their inviolability as recognized in international law. However, this inviolability of freedoms or rights is something different from the inviolability of their essence. In terms of the theory of law, the suspension of freedoms or rights turns out to be something significantly different from the temporary loss of the binding force of the respective provisions. Their continued validity is reflected, for example, in the application of the principle of proportionality to the suspended freedoms or rights. (shrink)

This article first of all attempts to assess the proposals of 2006–2007 to amend Poland’s Constitution, aimed mostly at strengthening constitutional protection of unborn human life. Parliamentary work on this proposal begins with the submission of the Deputy’s bill on amendment of the Constitution, published in the Sejm Paper No. 993 of September 5, 2006, and ends with a series of votes at the 39th sitting of the Sejm of the fifth term of office, held on April 13, (...) 2007, on which it was decided not to adopt any amendment. In the course of the legislative process, several modifi cation were offered not only to Article 38 concerning protection of life, but also to Article 30 dealing with dignity as a source of rights. Each of these proposals had drawbacks, including inter alia: the lack of a definite period of protection or entitlement to dignity, resulting in the decreased protection in relation to issues concerning euthanasia; the application of new categories granting a specific status to unborn human life; specifying the standards for protection by means of legislative acts ranking lower than a constitution, resulting in the transfer of life protection into the sphere of regulation of ordinary legislation. The most conducive for strengthening of the protection of unborn human life, even if not free of imperfections, was an amendment of Article 30 proposed by the Committee in the following wording: “The inherent and inalienable dignity, conferred on the person from the moment of conception, shall be a source of freedoms and rights of persons and citizens. It shall be inviolable; the respect and protection thereof shall be the obligation of public authorities.” From the rejection of the proposals it is diffi cult to draw conclusions that are vital for interpretation of the existing provisions. However, a conclusion that the intention of the authors of the constitution was not to strengthen the constitutional protection of life is not legitimate, mostly because of their doubts about formal correctness of the proposed amendments (when deciding to reject them), particularly the doubts about legal consequences of their adoption. -/- Streszczenie Zasadniczym celem opracowania jest próba całościowej oceny propozycji nowelizacji Konstytucji RP mającej miejsce w latach 2006-2007, zmierzającej przede wszystkim do wzmocnienia konstytucyjnej ochrony życia człowieka przed narodzeniem. Prace parlamentarne nad analizowaną nowelizacją otwiera poselski projekt ustawy o zmianie Konstytucji zawarty w druku sejmowym 993 z dnia 5 września 2006 (projekt wpłynął do Sejmu 7 września); zamyka seria głosowań na 39 posiedzeniu Sejmu V kadencji, dnia 13 kwietnia 2007 roku; głosowań, które przesądziły o niewprowadzeniu żadnych zmian. W trakcie procesu legislacyjnego proponowano szereg formuł, zmieniających nie tylko art. 38 dotyczący ochrony życia, ale także art. 30, który dotyczy godności jako źródła praw. W zasadzie wszystkie zgłoszone propozycje posiadały wady, wśród których najważniejsze to: brak domknięcia okresu ochrony lub przysługiwania godności, skutkujący obniżeniem ochrony w kwestiach związanych z eutanazją; stosowanie nowych kategorii, prowadzące do nadania specyficznego statusu człowiekowi przed narodzeniem; określanie standardu ochrony za pośrednictwem aktów o randze niższej od konstytucji, prowadzące do przesunięcia ochrony życia przed narodzeniem w sferę ustawodawstwa zwykłego. Z punktu widzenia celu, jakim było wzmocnienie konstytucyjnej ochrony życia człowieka przed narodzeniem i wzmocnienie jego pozycji prawnej, najlepsza, choć nie pozbawiona usterek, była zaproponowana przez Komisję zmiana brzmienia art. 30 prowadząca do formuły: „Źródłem wolności i praw człowieka i obywatela jest przyrodzona i niezbywalna godność człowieka, przynależna mu od chwili poczęcia. Jest ona nienaruszalna, a jej poszanowanie i ochrona jest obowiązkiem władz publicznych.”. Na podstawie odrzucenia propozycji zmian trudno wyciągać wnioski istotne dla interpretacji aktualnie obowiązujących przepisów; wniosek, że ustrojodawca nie chciał wzmocnienia konstytucyjnej ochrony życie nie jest prawomocny, przede wszystkim ze względu na – istotne w procesie podejmowania decyzji o odrzuceniu propozycji zmian – wątpliwości, co do formalnej poprawności formułowanych propozycji, w tym wątpliwości co do konsekwencji prawnych ich przyjęcia. (shrink)

The larger part of Yearbook 6 of the Institute Vienna Circle constitutes the proceedings of a symposium on Alfred Tarski and his influence on and interchanges with the Vienna Circle, especially those on and with Rudolf Carnap and Kurt Gödel. It is the first time that this topic has been treated on such a scale and in such depth. Attention is mainly paid to the origins, development and subsequent role of Tarski's definition of truth. Some contributions are primarily historical, others (...) analyze logical aspects of the concept of truth. Contributors include Anita and Saul Feferman, Jan Wolenski, Jan Tarski and Hans Sluga. Several Polish logicians contributed: Gzegorczyk, Wójcicki, Murawski and Rojszczak. The volume presents entirely new biographical material on Tarski, both from his Polish period and on his influential career in the United States: at Harvard, in Princeton, at Hunter, and at the University of California at Berkeley. The high point of the analysis involves Tarski's influence on Carnap's evolution from a narrow syntactical view of language, to the ontologically more sophisticated but more controversial semantical view. Another highlight involves the interchange between Tarski and Gödel on the connection between truth and proof and on the nature of metalanguages. The concluding part of Yearbook 6 includes documentation, book reviews and a summary of current activities of the Institute Vienna Circle. Jan Tarski introduces letters written by his father to Gödel; Paolo Parrini reports on the Vienna Circle's influence in Italy; several reviews cover recent books on logical empiricism, on Gödel, on cosmology, on holistic approaches in Germany, and on Mauthner. (shrink)

"Philosophical Foundations of Understanding of the Common Good". The central question is whether recognizing the common good as the central value in the new Polish Constitution of 1997, means accepting the primacy of the state over an individual. The answer is negative. The preparatory work to the constitution is analyzed and the philosophical perspective is outlined which corresponds to the intentions of the authors of the constitution. The analyses concentrate on the philosophical tradition reaching from Plato (...) to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. /////////////////// W nowej Konstytucji Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej przyjętej w 1997 roku, dobro wspólne jest jedną z fundamentalnych wartości. Centralne pytanie brzmi, czy uznanie dobra wspólnego za wartość fundamentalną, nie jest uznaniem prymatu państwa wobec jednostki, czy nie wprowadza do porządku konstytucyjnego idei totalitarystycznych. Odpowiedź na to pytanie jest negatywna. Argumentując, autor dokonuje analizy prac przygotowawczych do Konstytucji, oraz zmierza do zarysowania filozoficznej perspektywy rozumienia dobra wspólnego, perspektywy odpowiadającej intencjom twórców Konstytucji. W analizach położony jest akcent na filozoficzną tradycję refleksji nad dobrem wspólnym sięgającą od Platona poprzez Arystotelesa do Tomasza z Akwinu. -/- . (shrink)

In this article the author analyzes the first written constitutions adopted at the end of the eighteenth century (the Constitution of the United States of 1787, the Constitution of Polish – Lithuanian State and the Constitution of France of 1791). These constitutional acts mark the beginning of the era of constitutionalism. These are the constitutions of the first phase (‘wave’) of constitutional development, which laid the foundations for the further establishment of constitutionalism in the world. The (...) history of the first modern constitutions confirms that the nations adopt constitutions in order to protect individuals from possible abuses of state power. The essence of constitutional regulation is the restriction of this power. The three countries differ in many ways, but all had certain tradition of the restriction of powers. The first modern constitutions established the separation of powers and protected classical individual rights. They have become an example for the authors of later constitutions. These constitutions propose legal standards for constitutional development. Each of these constitutions is an original system of principles and norms. (shrink)

The study aims at making explicit the three spheres or planes, essential from the point of view of semiotics, on which the discourse regarding dignity takes place, and at clarifying the relations between these planes. The analysis uses the conception of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. There are three principal areas in which the discourse on dignity is conducted – the plane of linguistic expressions on which the name “dignity” is used; the plane of meanings on which the notion of dignity is placed; (...) and the plane of objects on which there is dignity itself. There is a relationship of meaning between the different concepts of dignity and the expression “dignity”, a relationship of signification between expression “dignity” and dignity as its referent, and a relationship of apprehension between the concepts of dignity and their referents. (shrink)

The article offers a concise view on the problems related to the compatibility of the religious clauses in the Polish Constitution with the principles and standards of the European Union and with the constitutional regulations of other individual member states. The author particularly demonstrates to what extent Poland is different or even unable to enter this community and fully participate in the integration of the continent. In the first part of the article, the author studies the content of (...) the Polish basic law provisions on religion, in the second—the corresponding European Union regulations and similar rules in force in the individual nations of the continent. The article concludes that the constitutional provisions on religious matters demonstrate that regulations in the Polish basic statute are not more confessional than those established in other European Union countries. (shrink)

The author examines the arguments for applicability of the limitation clause which specifies the requirements for limitation of constitutional freedoms and rights (Article 31 para. 3 of the Constitution) to the right to protection of life (Article 38). Even if there is almost a general acceptance of such applicability, this approach does not hold up to criticism based on the rule existing in the Polish legal order that treaty commitments concerning human rights have supremacy over national statutory regulations. (...) Due to an international pattern which does not provide application of the limitation clause to the right to life protection, despite the recognition — at the level of a constitutional standard — of applicability of the clause of Article 31 para. 3 to Article 38, and to protection of life in general, this will be made impossible at any attempt to formulate a statutory standard. He also points out the defectiveness of the reasoning leading to acceptance of certain limitations of a particular value (e.g. life) on the basis of the ex definitione exemptions existing in the international standard to the assumption of applicability of the limitation clause when shaping statutory standards in the Polish legal system. The discussed issues are related to the question of interpretation of the inviolability of human rights. This term takes different meaning in the context of: 1) inviolability of all human rights understood in abstracto as normative structures of a general and abstract nature; 2) right protecting certain values with no exception; 3) rights to which an application of the limitation clause is forbidden; 4) rights not subject to derogation; 5) inviolability of understood in concreto, as that is (here and now) due to the subject of dignity; 6) inviolable essence of freedoms and rights. One should also clearly distinguish between (7) the descriptive and (8) the normative meaning of inviolability. -/- Punktem wyjścia jest analiza argumentacji na rzecz tezy o stosowalności do prawa do ochrony życia (art. 38 Konstytucji RP), klauzuli limitacyjnej określającej warunki ograniczania konstytucyjnych wolności i praw (art. 31 ust. 3). Mimo niemal powszechnej akceptacji tej tezy, nie wytrzymuje ona krytyki opartej na pierwszeństwie, które w polskim porządku prawnym mają zobowiązania traktowe dotyczące praw człowieka, wobec regulacji ustawowych. Ze względu na wzorzec międzynarodowy, który nie przewiduje stosowania klasycznej klauzuli limitacyjnej do prawa do życia, mimo uznania - na poziomie standardu konstytucyjnego - stosowalności klauzuli z art. 31 ust. 3 do art. 38 i ochrony życia w ogóle, stosowalność tej klauzuli będzie uniemożliwiona przy każdej próbie formułowania standardu ustawowego. Autor zwraca uwagę na wadliwość wnioskowania prowadzącego od uznania dopuszczalności pewnych ograniczeń ochrony jakiejś wartości (np. życia) na podstawie wyjątków ex definitione obecnych w standardzie międzynarodowym, do tezy o stosowalności klauzuli limitacyjnej przy kształtowaniu standardu ustawowego w polskim systemie prawnym. (shrink)