La Constitución Política colombiana de 1991 estableció un Estado social de Derecho fundado en un diseño constitucional, el cual implica un sistema de frenos y contra-pesos para el ejercicio del poder. Desde una perspectiva formalista, se trata de un aporte importante para que las decisiones estatales respondan a un equilibrio entre diferentes exigencias que en últimas beneficien al interés general sobre el particular. Sin embargo, desde una perspectiva antiformalista se evidencian fenómenos políticos que ponen en riesgo un diseño aparentemente plausible; las prácticas políti-cas tienden a beneficiar el interés particular sobre el general. Se trata de un fenó-meno recurrente en la realidad colombiana, en donde parece existir un riesgo para la plena materialización de los postulados ponderados de los frenos y contrapesos para el Estado constitucional de derecho.

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.

Constitutional defence is considered one of the important constituents of a rule of-law state. Without a professional and independent constitutional defence mechanism, it is difficult to protect the constitution as the foundational law with the highest legal effect. Modern Vietnam is built around the Soviet mode of power organization; therefore, there are many inherent difficulties in building and operating a professional and independent constitutional defence. As a result of the 2013 Constitution and the 2015 Law on Referendum, the opportunity to establish a centralized, relatively independent, and professional constitutional defence model in Vietnam has never been more possible than it is now. By applying certain main research methods such as the normative analysis and comparative methods, this article attempts to clarify the opportunities and analyse the characteristics of the Vietnamese constitutional defence mechanism concerning universal standards. Consequently, it proposes a constitutional defence model for a socialist rule-of-law state

The issue of constitutional protection of natural resources does not arouse the interest of lawyers, including constitutionalists, in Poland. In none of the drafts of the new Constitution of the Republic of Poland presented after 1989 was this issue regulated. After the new Constitution of the Republic of Poland came into force in 1997, no draft amendment to this act dealing with natural resources was submitted either. The constitutional surveys conducted in 2011 and 2017 did not explicitly call for a complete or even very extensive amendment of the Constitution. Most often, they indicated the need for punctual amendments or concerning certain areas of constitutional regulation. In light of the experience with forest management, it would be advisable to extend constitutional protection to all strategic natural resources.

The issue of constitutional protection of natural resources does not arouse the interest of lawyers, including constitutionalists, in Poland. In none of the drafts of the new Constitution of the Republic of Poland presented after 1989 was this issue regulated. After the new Constitution of the Republic of Poland came into force in 1997, no draft amendment to this act dealing with natural resources was submitted either. The constitutional surveys conducted in 2011 and 2017 did not explicitly call for a complete or even very extensive amendment of the Constitution. Most often, they indicated the need for punctual amendments or concerning certain areas of constitutional regulation. In light of the experience with forest management, it would be advisable to extend constitutional protection to all strategic natural resources.

The publication looks into the conflict that occurs between values protected under the Constitution of the Republic of Poland – i.e. the right to privacy and the protection of communication versus the protection of property rights – in a situation of declaration of bankruptcy. Acting pursuant to Article 176(2) of the Bankruptcy Law, the legislator has a priori given preference to the protection of property rights over the right to privacy and the protection of communication. The conflict in question has been resolved in favour of bankruptcy creditors. The legislator’s adoption of a hierarchy of values in the area of bankruptcy law does not, of course, deal with all the problems arising in the field of the conflict between these values, and does not mean that the solution chosen is in accordance with hierarchically higher norms – meaning constitutional norms. In principle, the Constitution of the Republic of Poland makes the legislator free to resolve conflicts of competing values protected under this normative act. What is important is that this conflict be resolved by the – legislator in a way that meets the requirements of Article 31(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.

The publication looks into the conflict that occurs between values protected under the Constitution of the Republic of Poland – i.e. the right to privacy and the protection of communication versus the protection of property rights – in a situation of declaration of bankruptcy. Acting pursuant to Article 176(2) of the Bankruptcy Law, the legislator has a priori given preference to the protection of property rights over the right to privacy and the protection of communication. The conflict in question has been resolved in favour of bankruptcy creditors. The legislator’s adoption of a hierarchy of values in the area of bankruptcy law does not, of course, deal with all the problems arising in the field of the conflict between these values, and does not mean that the solution chosen is in accordance with hierarchically higher norms – meaning constitutional norms. In principle, the Constitution of the Republic of Poland makes the legislator free to resolve conflicts of competing values protected under this normative act. What is important is that this conflict be resolved by the – legislator in a way that meets the requirements of Article 31(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.

The issue of law-making is a key issue in a democratic state ruled by law. Particularly interesting seems to be the issue of enacting electoral law, which is exposed to the phenomenon of instrumentalisation. The aim of this article is to analyse the institution of legislative silence in Polish electoral law and to try to find an answer to the question whether the application of this solution may be an effective tool limiting the political influence on the shape of electoral law. In order to find the above questions, it was necessary to carry out a detailed analysis of this solution, primarily on the basis of the jurisprudence of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and international law standards specified in the documents of the Venice Commission. The work uses the formal and legal method and the literature and jurisprudence are reviewed.

Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022, at the age of 96 and after the longest reign in British history. Her death brings up the question of what the future holds for the monarchy. The paper explores the monarch’s role – both at home and abroad – as head of state. It also analyses how the new king will have to adapt to socio-political and demographic changes the United Kingdom has been going through. Britain is now recovering from Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic and dealing with the ongoing economic crisis and growing calls for Scottish independence and the change of status of Northern Ireland. The Queen successfully navigated the monarch’s constitutional political neutrality, but the new circumstances raise key questions about what kind of King former Prince Charles will be and whether public support for the monarchy will outlive support for Elizabeth II.

Public prosecution service has an irreplaceable place in the system of state authorities. However, the years of authoritarian regimes transformed independent public prosecution authorities existing on the territory of Slovakia and the Czech Republic into authorities protecting primarily the regime and persecuting all persons who were non-compliant with this regime. It was not until the fall of Communism in 1989 that a change came – a return to the original mission of public prosecution service (the independent protection of law). However, after the division of the Czechoslovakia in 1993 opinion plurality and the lack of a clear opinion on the nature of the public prosecution service resulted in the creation of two relatively different models – the model of prokuratúra in Slovakia and the model of státní zastupitelství in the Czech Republic. This is the reason why the author of this paper deals with the constitutional status of public prosecution service in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He analyses public prosecution service as a constitutional institution in general and then by comparison he focuses on constitutional regulation of the Slovak and Czech public prosecution service. The final parts contain brief evaluation of the current legal status and some possible considerations de constitutione ferenda.

The author’s goal is to analyze the concept of distributive justice and the possibility of its normative formulation in the Polish constitutional order. The starting point of consideration is the principle of social justice expressed in Article 2 of the Constitution and the model of distributive justice developed on its basis. The author, using formal-dogmatic, theoretical-legal and comparative-legal methods, points out the features of contributive justice and examines the normative and practical possibility of changing the paradigm of the constitutional fair state through a novel approach to justice focusing on equitable contribution, instead of the hitherto dominant distributive pattern. The result of the research conducted is the conclusion that, for reasons justified by the constitutional system and the praxeology of the workplace, contributive justice expands the concept of constitutional social justice in a valuable and desirable way.

The purpose of the article is the legal and comparative analysis of how the principle of the proportional restriction of the rights and freedoms of an individual is understood by the Constitutional Tribunal and the European Court of Human Rights. The author made a comparative profile of selected statements of the indicated judicial bodies, which refer to the essence, theoretical basis, structure and the practical application of the concept of proportionality, which allowed for distinguishing the basic similarities and differences between how proportionality is perceived by the CT and how it is viewed by the ECHR. The main thesis of the paper assumes that the most important and the most far-reaching differences concern the proportionality test structure as presented by both judicial bodies, as well as some practical aspects of the application of the test in the circumstances of specific actual states, however, the essence itself and its axiological basis remain similar in both cases.

The purpose of the article is analyse how essential the issue of personal data protection is in the procedure of leading a collective dispute. In order to make some findings in this matter, the dogmatic and legal method was primarily used and the provisions of the Act on Resolving Collective Disputes and the GDPR were analysed in the first place. The findings made lead to the conclusion that despite the fact that the dispute itself is collective, both parties (both the trade union and the employer) process a range of personal data during the dispute. Due to the specifics of the procedure and the fact that the Act was essentially created before the GDPR came into force and it was not amended for the inclusion of broadly understood requirements for the correctness of the processing of personal data, it is necessary to rely on general principles resulting from the GDPR, and a certain indicator of it may be opinions issued by the PDPO.
The issue raised in this paper has so far been included in certain statements from the doctrine, but its practical significance and importance for social partners who execute their constitutional right to lead collective disputes fully justify further research in this direction as well as the fact of findings resulting from that research reaching various target groups (apart from the above-mentioned social partners, representatives of the judicature and science should also be reached).

The article deals with the problem of modal inference: if some addressees are
obliged to do something, they are also obliged to realize states of affairs which
constitute a necessary condition for the main obligation. Likewise, they are obliged
to refrain from realizing states of affairs which constitute a sufficient condition for
the action contradicting the main obligation. This type of inference is called in Polish legal theory “instrumental inference”. It is argued in the article that sometimes instrumental norms in law must be fulfilled (“preparatory actions” must be undertaken) before the main obligation is fulfilled. Lawgiver helps addressees of norms by applying vacatio legis. It can lead to new paradoxical consequences – to the creation of “virtual norms” – norms which never come into force, but addressees are obliged to undertake preparatory actions. The article presents theoretical
description of this phenomenon. In conclusion one dogmatic claim is proposed:
there is a potential way (art. 4171 § 1 k.c.) of getting from public officials compensation for preparatory actions which caused burden for addressees, when the main obligation turned out to be “virtual”. In Poland this procedure should be based on the rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Abstract The question of compensation of Polish citizens for their property left beyond the Bug river after the population exchanges is among the most complex social, economical and legal issues resulting from the World War II to be solved by the Polish State. Although more than 70 years have passed since this issue has arisen, it remains the subject of numerous national and European court rulings and legislative actions; the significance of the legal solution of the described issue is bolstered by the fact that it is being treated as a “proving ground” for the broader question of reprivatisation. This article focuses on the current Act of 8 July 2005 which was aimed at providing a final solution for settling the claims. However, during the last few years of this act in operation numerous questions and disputes have arisen leading to more than 600 administrative court and Constitutional Tribunal rulings. The subject of this article will be focused on current controversies regarding the subject including the requirements of residence on the former territory of Poland on 1 September 1939, exclusion of non- Polish nationals who are heirs to property owners from entitlement to compensation and legal consequences of nationalization by Soviet authorities during World War II and its aftermath.

This article concerns the problem associated with the nature of the institution of a petition for reconsideration of the case in view of regulation No 16 of the Administrative Procedur Code in the version before the amendment dated 3 December 2010, which entered into force on 11 April 2011. Despite the amendment, to this day the provision is the source of many disputes, which is reflected in a very non-uniform judicial practice. On the basis of this regulation can be observed, how defective constructed legal provisions affect the administration of justice and the application of the law by creating situations in which the courts take over the functions of law making. On the selected example is shown, how one decision of the Supreme Court, being the basis of decisions of courts of appeal, causes that victims defective administrative decision are charged with the responsibility for legislative errors. Knowledge of the matter, which is the subject of this publication, is extremely important for all practitioners as well as theorists of the law because of the importance of the issues, which accompany the main theme. The work is based on an analysis of the concept of finality and validity of administration decision and depth on theoretical consideration and extensive discussion of the judicial practice of administrative courts, civil courts and Constitutional Tribunal.

The subject of this article covers the relationship between literature and the law. An example of this text is The Code of Nature from 1755. Morelly’s composition is beauty, simplicity and sincerity. Morelly, and before him Rousseau, are the eulogists of Nature, exhorting us to live according to her eternal, immutable and perfect laws. On the other hand, he stays true to Cartesian tradition cult of reason and power. The Code of Nature shall be treated as the enlightenment utopia of a communist State. Life in accordance with Nature is a happy life To achieve this, the abolition of private property in social relations is required. The Code of Nature is seen as a harbinger of coming processes of codification and consolidation of the idea of modern constitutionalism.