The notion of the contribution of the Sejm to enacting laws indicates that particular participants of the legislative process get committed into the adoption of socio-political resolutions which appear in the form of normative acts, ranking as laws. It seems therefore to be worthwhile to point out the criteria behind the legislative work — both with regard to the actions taken by deputies individually or as a group, within the framework of the legislative procedure provided for by the regulations of the Sejm, or the actions of either the organs of the Sejm or other parliamentary agencies which participate in the legislative process. In order to establish the regularities of the legislative behaviour and interpret the Sejm legislation, the statistical methods become useful, particularly that they are propitious to disclose the characteristic attitudes of the deputies, establish ideological qualities and orientations which can be assumed as the motivating factors. This particularly regards the analysis of the amendments to acts. The analysed procedures of submitting amendments allow to make a distinction into typical political functions they perform. Accordingly, the amendments are to: safeguard law and order, protect the rights and interests of citizens, improve the provisions of the law (delete contradictions, improve the legibility of acts and complexity of regulations), make the functioning of the state apparatus more democratic, protect national economy,ensure a social factor in administration, consolidate and expand socialist democracy, accelerate socio-economic and technological progress. The quantitative indices make it easier to understand the process and outcome of the legislative work. They cannot replace interpretation and assessment, however. The indices should not be applied apart from the functions of institutions of the socialist parliamentarianism, since this is what they reflect, or the sociolegal reality at the period of which they are a fragment. A questionaire and interview can be availed of when attempting to determine the individual contribution of the deputies to the work on a resolution. The data from questionaires are of auxiliary importance. The examination of various documents, press information, statistical data, questionaires in the legislative work in a particular sphere provides the basic sources for generalization as to the contribution of the Sejm into the legislative process. The following classification of sources and auxiliary materials can be made:1. formal information (legal acts, parliamentary prints, formal documentation of the legislative work, the resolutions of the party and political fractions, social and political organizations). 2. Informal information (political information on the legislative work and socio-political foundations of bills, informal documents relating to the legislative work, informations covering discussions and consultations, opinions disseminated by mass-media, specialized studies in particular domains of law, reports by scholars, results of questionaires and polls). The socialist parliament, being a central state body passing resolutions, has an impact on the political contents of the latter. The all-national party programme is formulated in co-operation with the groups of society outside the party, which differ in terms of political organization. It is in the Sejm that this colaboratin can take place. The Sejm holds an exceptional position in our system, for beside co-operating in passing state resolutions, also with regard to their political contents, it participates in optimizing decisions, which finally appear in the form of acts, and the very process of adopting resolutions. The role the Sejm plays in enacting laws cannot be separated from the structure of passing resolutions in parliament. Since it is an ’’open” structure, it is possible to incorporate various subjects in the process of passing resolutions through polls, consultations, discussions on intended resolutions. The procedure of passing resolutions in the Sejm consists of several stages and therefore it is possible to call the structure of the said processes the “structure of a dialogue”, where different opinions and standpoints can be confronted when a measure is being searched. Collective resolutions are favourable to avail of the knowledge, experience and abillities of individuals, thus to enrich the contents of the respective measures. The structure of the process of passing resolutions in the Sejm facilitates self-control and enables to apply the optimizing criteria in a complex manner.
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May 29, 2023
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