Sankcje konstytucyjne. Istota, funkcje oraz rodzaje
Constitutional sanctions: Their Essence, Functions and Types

Summary/Abstract: The author presents basic explanation of a sanction and its basic types that are mentioned in the theory of law. According to the article, a constitutional tort is a breach of a constitutional norm, which is done by an authority in the course of fulfi lling their constitutional obligations. The provisions of statutes associate a constitutional tort with several types of sanctions. The punishment for breaching the Constitution may be imposed on several types of subjects like an authority (either a single person or a body of persons, e.g. the Council of Ministers, the Sejm or the President of the Republic) as well as those persons who exercise constitutional powers (e.g. Members of Parliament, or Ministers). In some situations, the Public Treasury which has not committed the tort, is responsible for violating the Constitution. In the fi nal part of the article the author examines the infl uence of time on the possibility of applying the sanctions. With few exceptions, the Constitution does not specify time limits for the application of negative consequences to stop the violations of constitutional norms. However, these time limits may be determined by statute. In such situations, after the expiry of a period of time indicated in the statute, the sanction cannot be applied. The essential role of constitutional sanctions is to force the authorities to obey constitutional rules. They also perform four additional functions: the function of repression, the function of restitution, the function of redistribution and the function of prevention.

• Details
• Contents