„BEZSTRONNOŚĆ” WŁADZ PUBLICZNYCH

Abstract

The author concludes that like other legal acts, including Community laws, also Poland’s Constitution should be free from provisions that are either untrue or unenforceable. This concerns, inter alia, article 25 clause 2 of the Constitution, which provides for impartiality of public authorities in matters regarding religious or philosophical beliefs, or the world view, and suggests that rather the outlook represented by public authorities should be explicitly determined. Such a solution would help to avoid the hypocrisy where the authorities declare, on the one hand, impartiality, but at the same time are guided in practice by certain (atheist, religious or philosophical) views and beliefs. This, however, would require the courage of rejecting certain untrue, although attractive stereotypes, but it would be, at the same time, an honest solution, both for the legislature, as well as the judiciary and the executive, whose organs would be finally given certain clear guidelines how to interpret law. Moreover, the Constitutional Court (in Poland: the Constitutional Tribunal) would also need to be equipped with competences to assess laws not only from the point of view of the Constitutional provisions, but also from the point of view of the law that, although not imposed by national or supranational laws, is nevertheless binding upon all the subjects who have recognised it (as binding). This is particularly true in cases when the meaning of human rights is to be construed from the actual content o f those rights, undistorted by politicians in statutory provisions.