Warsaw team

Professor Marta Bucholc (PI Warsaw)

Mapping the discursive resources of illiberal constitutionalism in Poland

My research project consists of two parts: a thematic analysis of the publications in one of the oldest Polish legal journals “Państwo i Prawo” (Law and State) since 1981 (the year when the postulate to establish an institutionalized constitutional review was voiced in Poland by “Solidarność”) until 2021. The historical reconstruction of the academic legal discourse reflected in this journal will be used as a backdrop for a comparative analysis of constitutionalist discourses produced by two juristic think tanks, representing two radically different approaches to liberal constitutionalism in Poland: Archiwum Osiatyńskiego (est. 2017, critical of the current Polish government) and Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture (est. 2013, supportive of the current Polish government).I will trace conceptual continuities and discontinuities in the illiberal constitutionalist thinking back to the sources in the academic discourse predating both the post-Communist transformation and the dawning of illiberal constitutionalism in Poland.

Naum Trajanovski, M.A. (Ph.D. student)

Historicizing illiberal constitutionalism in Poland: The Ehrlich-Kaczyński link

My research project deals with the recent debates over Stanisław Ehrlich (1907-97) and his theory of state and law in contemporary Poland. A leading legal scholar and editor from the late 1940s up to the 1960s, Ehrlich’s name reemerged in the Polish public discourse after the 2015 governmental change and the constitutional crisis that followed. Ehrlich (and his oeuvre) – as the academic mentor of Kaczyński – thus became the usual suspect when historicizing the Polish constitutional illiberalism, not only via the jurisprudence references, but, more importantly, strikingly similar practices and conceptual approaches (constitution as embodiment of popular sovereignty, supremacy of political will, predominance of executive over judicial power etc.).

To trace the intellectual sources of the present debates and developments, I plan to look at Ehrlich’s editorial work at Państwo i Prawo (State and Law; 1945-66) and The Polish Round Table (1961-66), the reception of his work in Poland and beyond, his domestic and international professional networks and the modes of academic interactions he instigated.