Bezpośrednie stosowanie Konstytucji RP w praktyce sądowej
Direct application of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland in judicial practice

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the issue of direct application of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The main emphasis is placed on the verification of how the mechanism of direct application of the Constitution has evolved over the last few years in the Polish jurisprudence. The analysis of direct application of the Constitution has been made on the basis of the recent jurisprudence of Polish and international courts and tribunals. At the same time two main thematic areas have been distinguished concerning respectively: the judicial system and the protection of constitutional freedoms and rights of a human being and a citizen. The first part of the article revolves around the issue of the change in the judicial system in the form given by the Act on the National Council of the Judiciary passed in 2017. That change contributed to a gradual increase in the interest of courts and tribunals in the mechanism of direct application of the Constitution in cases of institutional character, concerning such important issues in a democratic state of law as the independence of courts or the independence and impartiality of judges. The second part of the paper confronts the problem of direct application of the Constitution with using this institution in cases concerning the protection of constitutional freedoms and rights, relatively rarely identified in the jurisprudential practice. A remarkable example thereof is the sparse judicial decisions of common and administrative courts in the scope of the issue at stake. Finally, the article concludes that over the last few years there was an increased, but not equal, level of interest in the direct application of the Constitution. At the same time, the question remains whether courts’ relatively marginal approach to the direct application of the Constitution means that it is an institution constituting only an erudite argument used in connection with the direct subject matter of the case considered by the court.

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