PiS and the Law
Constitutional Crisis and Polish Legal Culture
Marta Bucholc, Maciej Komornik
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In Poland, the party Law and Justice (PiS) has amended the Constitutional Court Act. In doing so, it has reduced the Constitutional Court’s authority and paralysed the pronouncement of judgements. As a result, a dispute has ensued over the relationship between legislature and judiciary and escalated into a veritable constitutional crisis. In essence, the president, the government, and the PiS majority faction in the Sejm have a different understanding of separation of powers, one based on a new definition of sovereignty, the source of which is not the political whole, the demos, but the “nation”. This thinking feeds on a conservative utopia. In the PiS understanding of the law, traditions from the interwar era and the Polish People’s Republic are detectable.
(Osteuropa 1-2/2016, pp. 79–93)