THE PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE CONSTITUTIONAL TRIBUNAL ON THE UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF SUBSTATUTORY ACTS IN THE YEARS 1986-1997

Abstract

The Constitutional Court of Poland has been functioning for over thirty years now. The Constitutional Tribunal was established as a result of the act on 26th March 1982 on the amendments of the Constitution of the Polish People’s Republic. It was supposed to judge the accordance of the passed acts by the Sejm and other normative acts issued by the main or central state authorities with the Constitution. The legislator adopted that the Constitutional Tribunal judgements on the accordance with the Constitution shall be recognized by the Sejm. The regulations of the Constitution that was in force at the time did not regulate appropriateness, system or ways of proceedings of the Constitutional Tribunal. The act was supposed to regulate all those areas. It was passed no sooner that on 29th April 1985. The article presents the Constitutional Tribunal judgement heritage in the years 1986-1997 in relation to the substatutory acts. Those included first of all normative acts issued by the main and central institutions of public administration as well as those acts issued by other main and central public authorities. The procedures used by the Constitutional Tribunal concerning the accordance of the substatutory acts with the Constitution and statutory acts were discussed as well. The article also presents an issue of proceedings in case of legal enquiries . A matter of signaling decisions made by the Constitutional Tribunal about the possible misconduct s were alsodiscussed . The term a quo is indicated by the date of the first judgement of the Constitutional Tribunal. It occurred on 26th May 1986. However, the term ad quem means the date of passing a new act on the Constitutional Tribunal. It was adopted on 1st August 1997 on the basis of the regulations of the Constitution from 2nd April 1997.