This article discusses the independent state legislature theory, which has been the subject of interest of an ever-growing group of American constitutionalists in recent years. This theory deals primarily with state legislatures’ power – derived directly from the US Constitution – to regulate federal elections. According to its underlying premises, this fact results in the absence of any tools to control the law enacted in this area as to its compliance with a given state’s constitution. Neither the electoral administration nor the state courts can interfere with these laws. They would therefore be subject to federal courts’ review only. However, the Supreme Court, in applying the political questions doctrine, has excluded many election law matters – other than those concerning funding – from its jurisdiction. As a result, such an important part of state law – one concerning fundamental political rights – would remain without any supervision inherent in modern democraci

This article discusses the independent state legislature theory, which has been the subject of interest of an ever-growing group of American constitutionalists in recent years. This theory deals primarily with state legislatures’ power – derived directly from the U.S. Constitution – to regulate federal elections. According to its underlying premises, this fact results in the absence of any tools to control the law enacted in this area as to its compliance with a given state’s constitution. Neither the electoral administration nor the state courts can interfere with these laws. They would therefore be subject to federal courts’ review only. However, the Supreme Court, in applying the political questions doctrine, has excluded many election law matters – other than those concerning funding – from its jurisdiction. As a result, such an important part of state law – one concerning fundamental political rights – would remain without any supervision inherent in modern democracies.

The paper analyzes the concept of integrity of a judge from the perspective of the virtue jurisprudence. There are the judicial virtues specified and described, including integrity as one of the elements of the virtue of justice. Subjective and objective integrity are distinguished, as well as personal, professional and institutional integrity. Integrity of a judge is understood as personal integrity combined with professional integrity and also institutional integrity in which values and aims of the profession are taken into account. Virtue jurisprudence does not provide clear directives for solving legal disputes but it emphasizes the necessity of referring to the dispositions of a judge in order to understand fully the process of judgment. On the grounds of virtue jurisprudence, the integrity of a moral subject if assumed which provides the foundation for trust in the profession of judge and does not allow for the separation of social roles, assuming the possibility of reconciling them with the use of prudence. The problem of conflicting virtues, namely integrity and impartiality in the context of judicial review is discussed on the example of the judgment of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of October 22, 2020, K 1/20 which illustrates judicial activism. The considerations concerning this example bring about the conclusion that in the most controversial political and moral disputes, political prudence suggest the direction of the virtue of judicial restraint due to deference of democracy and the division of powers.

In the judgement C-403/16 Soufiane El Hassani v. Polish Foreign Office European Court of Justice noticed that provisions of internal law cannot limit the right to judical-review established in art. 32 par. 3 of Visa Code. The regulation must be interpreted in context of EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Meanwhile the sentence was answer to question of Polish Supreme Administrative Court and it arose under Administrative Courts Proceedings Act which prohibits performing judicial review over visa decisions. The aim of the paper is to explain that judicial review at those issues may be effectively performed by common courts, without damaging visa-applicants rights. The possibility comes from wide definition of civil case in code of civil procedure and attribution of common courts in some public administration cases.

Even though the proportionality principle is well-established for judicial review in matters pertaining to human rights in modern constitutional law in numerous jurisdictions, it has recently become subject to a growing tide of criticism. The article aims to describe and critically analyze the main arguments raised by the opponents of using proportionality as the tool for adjudicating conflicts of fundamental rights. After briefly describing the typical and the most common structure of the proportionality test as it is used in constitutional law, the author would present – and then dismiss – the three most significant allegations towards the proportionality analysis, namely: the problem of incommensurability, the alleged proportionality’s moral neutrality as well as the scope of judicial discretion that is claimed to be too wide according to some of proportionality’s opponents.

This paper reviews the work of Cass R. Sunstein who is a renowned and widely quoted legal scholar and a very prolific writer on a wide range of subjects. I outline herein some themes and ideas expressed in over a dozen C.R. Sunstein’s books that were published between 1993 and 2017. As the title suggests, an emphasis is placed on issues of constitutional relevance. Aiming to place Sunstein’s body of work within a larger context I trace a considerable shift in his approach to political problems and challenges from a purely legal to a more nuanced and multi-dimensional one. Accordingly I present Sunstein’s views on such issues as the partiality of constitutions, incompletely theorized agreements, judicial minimalism, the ideological component of judging, the cost of rights, and group polarization. The works of this contemporary Publius show that pursuing constitutional law in a practical way is much more than study in linguistics or compiling a constitutional court’s decisions. Cass R. Sunstein’s extensive oeuvre provides a rich material for devising new constitutional solutions to real social problems.

The article attempts to present the legislative changes relating to the so called Act 2.0, i.e, the law on higher education together with its implementary regulation on studies as well as the proposed university apprenticeship, which has not as of yet been made into law of any kind. These changes may have a considerable impact on legal education in Poland, and, hence, on the public administration sector in the context of its needs. For it seems justified to assume that the two research areas, i.e. the public administration sector and legal education are both interrelated and that they exert reciprocal influence upon each other. For public administration, in order to function properly, requires a supply of lawyers whereas the latter, in turn, considerably affects its practices – for instance, by way of academic activities and jurisprudential construction or judicial review. The text focuses, above all, on outlining the postulate of the so called good administration. Subsequently, selected issues are presented in the areas of legal education that are related to such administration and can serve to either implement the postulate or to weaken it. Presented are also the assumptions of the draft of the, so called, academic apprenticeship as well as the draft law together with its implementary regulation. Moreover, attention is paid to the phenomenon of mythologisation of practical education presenting a desired direction of legislative action in that respect

This article has originated from observations of the current Polish political and legal disputes over the Constitution. In pursuing the reasons for the different lines of the argumentation presented, we have brought the issue of education in constitutional law to attention. We have covered the issue in two stages. The first stage involves a discussion of education models as expounded in social theory. Our starting point was the structural-functional model and its criticism along the lines of conflict, interpretative, and critical theories. This is followed by a presentation of the evolution of administrative-law institutions in the light of the conflict between the expected openness to ethical and political dimensions and the claims for integrity and coherence. To this end, we followed the proposals of Nonet and Selznick. The second stage includes a review of three conceptions of the constitution and constitutionalism. The views of Kelsen, Schmitt as well as the American judicial review doctrine served as model examples. These proposals can be presented as the cornerstones of three visions of constitutional-law education. We did not content ourselves with presenting a set of models of education and covering a reconstruction of the vision of constitutional education. We have also attempted to demonstrate, bearing in mind the nature of the Polish debate over the Constitution, that the judicial review doctrine opens up a promising sphere for a revaluation of both the theory and practice of constitutional law.