Rola Sądu Najwyższego w procesie wykładni konstytucji USA
Role of the supreme court in the process of the interpretation of American constitution

Summary/Abstract: Depending on the types of legal norms met by the U.S. Supreme Court, its judicial activity takes the shape of creative, interpretative or constitution-making functions. In the above mentioned activity all these functions intertwine, so as the types of the norms applied by the Court do. The common feature of all these functions is that they cannot be reduced solely to the law application, but that they make that law to a vast extent. This is the biggest paradox in the Court’s work: a singular case, being decided in a typical way for such matters, becomes a basis to create a new general norm which changes law already in force. Seemingly typical judicial powers are transformed into legislative ones.On the political level the Court performs three functions: a) interpretation of the Constitution; b) mediation in political conflicts; c) legal and ideological legitimization of the activity of other state organs. So, not so much a creative law improvement but political tasks come to the fore in the Court’s activity, which to some measure goes at the cost of the governmental status of the Congress. All this, in comparison to the European constitutional tribunals, gives it a distinct governmental nature. In the Old World the material limits of constitutional exegesis are drawn by the very concept of a constitution, while in the United States the concept in question is mainly a work of the Court itself.

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