Organizacja i funkcjonowanie polskiego Sądu Obywatelskiego w Londynie

Abstract

The Civic Court in London was brought into existence on the strength of a Presidential decree of 8 September 1950 concerning Civic Courts in Exile. It consisted of a General and a Civic Department. Its main objective was to adjudicate on matters relating to acts that were reprehensible from the point of view of the Polish political exiles, but at the same time indifferent in the light of the British law. The most active period in the operation of the Polish Civic Court in London occurred in the years 1951–1954, that is at a time when it was headed by Stanislaw Krause. After the rupture within the Polish emigre circles, the London court remained a presidential organ, although a considerable number of its judges moved to the faction grouped around the Polish Council of Three. This had led to the organizational decline of the court and ultimately to is practical liquidation in the first half of the sixties.