Need to optimize the legislative process in Poland

Abstract

For over 10 years now in the literature on the subject of law and in relevant publications there have been allegations concerning the quality of the enacted law in Poland. This paper is an attempt to analyze both appearing demands to rationalize the process of making law as well as those concerning the creating of the catalogue of the biggest problems in this area. The Polish Constitution of 1997 defined in detail the system of the sources of law in its separate Chapter three, which is not common in the European constitutionalism. It took place when Poland was preparing for the accession to the European Union, whose system of the sources of law significantly differs from the classical, “normative” concept of the sources of law adopted in the Polish Constitution. The concept of making law accepted in the Polish Constitution seems to not fully correspond to the duties regarding EU notification of the changes in the Polish legal regulations. It affects the legislation act itself as well as the procedure of its enacting. It particularly influences the actual restriction of the Senate legislative competences, giving it only 30 days for reviewing a given act. The paper states that the regulation of Chapter three of the Constitution supplemented by the Constitutional Tribunal rulings based on the analysis of Art. 2 of the Constitution make an effective limit for the activities undertaken by the legislator which are inconsistent with the Constitution. The paper also analyses the practice of application of the rules concerning the legislative process comprised in Chapter four of the Constitution. Finally, the conclusion is drawn that to reach good legislative results it is not enough only to properly regulate all the legislative stages, but also to regulate the political system itself.