Using Legislative History in Interpreting Polish Law Example of Changes in Uderstanding Principles of Law Durig the Transition Period

Abstract

The article discusses changes in the fundamental legal principles which took place in Central and Easter European countries during the period of system transformation of the late 1980s and the early 1990s, presented from the perspective of Polish experience. It encompasses an analysis of the changes which were made in this period in the Constitution of the Polish People’s Republic of 1952 and selected acts. The authors have studied legislative materials of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland of the 10th term (the so-called Contract Sejm elected in the aftermath of the Round Table Agreement, which paved the way to democratic changes in Poland) which amended the aforementioned acts. It is the authors’ belief that the legislative materials are a valuable source of information on the legislative intent as they make it possible to identify the underlying objectives behind the changes made as well as the meaning the legislator intended to attribute to the new provisions. The research revealed that during the period of system transformation, new provisions were introduced to the Polish law which led to the establishment of new legal principles fundamental for the system (e.g. the democratic state under the rule of law principle); some provisions were amended and the terms used therein were reformulated so as to correspond to the goals of the state post- Communist transformation (e.g. the principle of the people’s rule of law was transformed into the principle of the rule of law) while the other provisions, although left in their then-current wording, over the course of time, received a new meaning (e.g. the principle which requires that civil law relationships should take account of the rules of social coexistence). The authors believe the paper can be an interesting source of information for readers in the Czech Republic, which just like Poland, after the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc, was faced with challenges related to changing the jurisprudence in the aftermath of the system transformation.