Rola senatorów w sejmach Rzeczypospolitej

Abstract

During the three centuries of the functioning of the Sejm of the Commonwealth the role of the senators continued to change. Initially, they fulfilled chiefly the function of the royal council, predominantly advising the king and forcing through approval of decisions made at nobility sejmiks. At the same time, they constituted the second chamber of the Sejm, whose legislative rights were gradually reduced in the course of the Executionist (execution-of-the-law) Movement aimed at the emancipation of the nobility and represented primarily in the Chamber of Deputies. Already at that time strivings of the senators began to change by focusing on building up their position in the nobility-dominated provinces and declaring themselves defenders against the threat of royal absolutism. As a result, the involvement of the senators in the work conducted by the seventeenth-century Sejm diminished, a process expressed in low attendance and negligible fulfilment of the duties of presenting wota (opinions and commentaries), the work performed by resident senators, and taking part in Senate councils. Not until the King Stanisław Augustus era did the Sejm revive and the role played by the senators grow. The senators now gained influence upon the then established Permanent Council, via which they could control the executive and jurisdiction. Moreover, they became the support of royal-ambassadorial rule. By the time of the Four-Year Sejm their position collapsed in the face of rising patriotic and republican attitudes in the Chamber of Deputies. As a result, it was decided to radically limit the number of senators and their impact upon legislative activity, a resolution upheld also by the last Sejm held in Grodno. These resolutions, which to a great extent limited the role played by the senators, did not come into force.