Democratic Poland: from 1791 to Duda
Authors: Olga Aleszko, Marcin Czerkawski, Andreas Speiser
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — Constitutional pioneer
It is generally considered that the constitution of the of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 3rd of May 1791 is the oldest modern constitution in Europe. Therefore the 3rd of May is still nowadays a celebrated public holiday in Poland. But the constitution of the 3rd of May was only in force for 19 months and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a dual monarchy including Lithuania and Poland, disappeared in 1795 from the map of Europe with the Third Partition of Poland among its neighbor states Austria, Prussia and Russia.
In 1918–123 years later, in the end of the First World War, Poland was reestablished as an independent democracy and the same time introduced the right to vote for all its citizens including citizens from lower classes, ethnical minorities (Jews) and women. Because of the Nazi invasion in September 1939 the Polish Government evacuated to London, from which it controlled a Polish underground state during the entire duration of the Nazi occupation. After the Soviet liberation of Poland from the Nazis the country had two governments, the one in London and one of the Polish People’s Republic in Warsaw. After the second world war the Polish United Workers’ Party ruled the country from Warsaw, but was dependent from the Soviet Union and lacked democratic legitimization. Therefore only after the fall of communism in 1989 and election of the opposition’s representative Lech Wałęsa and the return of democracy according to Western standards in Poland the Polish government in exile recognized the new leadership in Warsaw and ceased to exist.
First challenges of the liberated country
The first years after the end of communism in Poland were tough due to new economic ( so called “shock therapy”) and political reforms. First democratically elected president Lech Wałęsa lost in the elections in 1995 to a a former communist Aleksander Kwaśniewski.
New constitution was adopted in 1997. It was preceded by a long debate about its content and form ( e.g. there was a great discussion about the reference to God in the preamble). In the constitutional referendum only 43% of the eligible voters went to the polling stations. The voter turnout is indeed a big problem in Poland. The average quota of all 40 national votings in the Third Polish Republic is 45%, much less than in other countries of the region. It shows a strong weakness of the civil society in Poland.
The authoritative authorities
Nowadays, for the first time in the history of Polish democracy one party (PiS) has an absolute majority in the Parliament and the president of the country, Andrzej Duda, belong to the same party. Therefore, some attempts of the party to proceed new laws and system changes bring Poland into international focus. The perception of the ruling party and the president is not very appealing or well welcomed by the countries and institutions of the European Union or Council of Europe. The current government tends to be described by authoritarian character. The most controversial case concerns the Polish Constitutional Court. The current government has considered the appointment of judges by previous ruling party (Platforma Obywatelska — Civic Platform) as unconstitutional and have made their own appointments. In addition to that the government introduced the law changing the majority of votes in the Constitutional Court from the majority as it was stated in the Constitution of Poland to the two-third of votes. The Constitutional Court ruled the new law as a non-compliant with the Polish Constitution. The government refused to publish the decision of the Constitutional Court preventing its legal validity. The entire case was massively covered and fueled by domestic, state controlled and Western media. The other controversial law that was passed by new government concerned the public media. New law allows the government to fire and hire the chiefs of public TV, Radio and the media supervisory committee. Polish Parliament also decided to pass a new assembly bill, which was criticised by the Poland’s ombudsman, human rights campaigners and The European Commission. Introducing new kinds of assemblies (e.g. those of national importance) would prioritize some gatherings. Surprisingly President Duda has sent this law to the constitutional court. For the first time in his short (but very fruitful of signatures) presidential career he refused to sign a document coming from the parliament, which is dominated by his party. The odd thing is the fact that the constitutional court has just achieved a majority of judges chosen by the right-wing. So the conspiracy theories say it’s a kind of a game to make the impression of a self-criticism of the governmental camp.
Another significant attempt that could be seen as a danger to Polish democracy is the plans to change the electoral law in Poland. It concerns the limitation of mayors being in duty to two terms. All of these cases tend to be perceived as undemocratic due to the possession of absolute power by one party that could actually be very dangerous for the democratic system, especially when the rule of law is not being followed.
The pilot, who steers the country through all this political turbulence is the long serving PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński. As a regular member of parliament he’s not a typical member of the legislature, rather its quite autocratic element (of highest relevance by practice, not by constitution).
Michał Bilewicz, a social psychologist and a journalist says:
“The current politics of Kaczyński’s party will leave us with a social burnt patch (…) Its legacy will be also a damaged law system, where any authority will get a total control over the society”
