The Constitutional Tribunal sentence of 12 December, 2011 (P 1/11) concerning the banning of voivodeship law-making with regard to regional operational programmes within the European Union

Abstract

The discussed sentence, in the quite detailed matter, is in fact regarding the concurrence of many more serious theoretical and conceptual issues concerning the model of state and the system of the law. The Constitutional Tribunal, as part of its justification, granted it the broader sense, being significant both for further possible references of other provisions of the Act, its amendment, and the different practice of its interpreting and applying. In the light of the verdict of the Tribunal the surprise must arouse the fact that in practice the rules of acting of the legal state were violated to such a serious extent. To evaluate the genesis of the verdict and its consequences, it is necessary to mention a few general problems according to the system of implementing regional operational programmes. These problems are: the eternal dispute about the borders of self-reliance of administration (especially national), establishment of the border of dividing acts of making law from acts of applying, completeness of the democracy features, and finally, borders of rights protection on to the individual in relation to the general interest. In the discussed case the self-government of the province was dependent on the cooperation with the government administration with regard to the distribution of EU resources. Self-governments participate not only in problems associated with areas of administrational competence but also in problems linked with its legal forms. In the Italian or Spanish model of the local self-government we would not find such issues, since they are only to a small degree dependent on Government coordinating actions.