The importance of preamble in constitutional court jurisprudence

Abstract

The Constitution comprises general clauses and notions whose meaning it does not specify in detail-and this meaning can be established by Constitutional Court. In the Polish doctrine of Constitutional law, opinions about the legal status of the Preamble are diversified. The dominant view in the contemporary doctrine of Constitutional law is that the Preamble has a normative character. The Constitutional Court has many times drawn upon the provisions of the Preamble in its rulings. The provisions of the Preamble dealing with Constitutional principles and values form a “bridge” between natural law and positivist law, which may be conducive to a fuller protection of human rights in the state, and consequently a better operation of Constitutional democracy. But the higher the frequency of principle- and value-invoking notions in the Constitutional text (usually in the Preamble), the greater and the more real is the authority of those who interpret these notions-and impart sense to them-in conditions of a particular constitutional dispute.