Government system in the Republic of Poland in the light of the constitution of 1997 (prolegomena)

Abstract

Since 1989, the problem of the government system, including in particular the government system normatively defined in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2 April 1997, has been a subject of vivid interest and comprehensive analysis in the Polish science of constitutional law and in political science. Two groups of issues presented in a synthetic way are the subject of this article: 1) an attempt to reconstruct the most typical views and standpoints of representatives of Polish science concerning ideas and theories of the government systems; 2) characteristics against slightly wider regime-related background of the government system defined in the Constitution of 1997 and its main elements. Out of the issues contemplated in this article a number of significant ones has been dealt with by Polish science, such as: understanding the expression “government system”; classification of government systems; characteristics of basic models of government systems — the parliamentary one and its streamlined version, presidential, and mixed systems. Reflecting on the government system in the light of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997, a number of essential issues from this area has been submitted to analysis, such as: shaping a concept of government system under the Constitution in force; influence of the foremost constitutional principles regarding the political system on the government system, such as: democratic state under the rule of law, national authorities, representative form of exercising power by the nation, separation and balance of powers, and political pluralism. General characteristics of the constitutional government system of the Republic of Poland has been acknowledged as a system of mixed character, highlighting those provisions that indicate the prevalence of the parliamentary features of the government system depicting solutions that serve the rationalization of this system, presenting incorporated elements of the presidential system and regulations of the national background.