Goodbye rządy prawa? Diagnoza i perspektywa
Goodbye Rule of Law? Diagnosis and Prospects

Summary/Abstract: In the article, I try to show that legal dualism provides a conceptual grid for the analysis of thecrisis of the rule of law. In demonstrating this, I first introduce the concept of legal dualismand then present autocratic legalism and abusive judicial review in its light. Two variants ofthe conceptual framework of legal dualism are suitable for describing and explaining theseforms of governance. Legal dualism is framed as: a) an instrumental action of the “mainactors” in public life, and b) a social attitude that lacks a cultural imperative that allows citizensto identify with the law.Two main conclusions can be drawn from the article’s findings. First, autocratic legalism andabusive judicial review are based on the instrumentalization of the rule of law as a political ideal. Second, legal dualism as a public attitude indicates that insufficient consideration of thesocial dimension of law has made it easier for political centres to challenge the liberal vision ofthe rule of law, presented by its opponents as the rule of lawyers, the social elite. A responseto the charge of alienating the law in different configurations (political constitutionalism versuslegal constitutionalism) is the idea of inclusivity, which can be expressed in different theoreticallanguages.The context for the conclusions of the article is the constitutional crisis, which is also presentin the Polish legal order The empirical documentation does not determine the researchmethodology in the this article, but I instead pursue in it an approach that can be classified asrooted in the social theory of law (B.Z. Tamanaha).

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