System rządów premierowskich jako nowy typ systemu rządów: casus Wielkiej Brytanii

The paper attempts to address the question of whether the prime ministerial system has already emerged as a separate system of governance that differs from classical systems, and whether it can no longer be treated as a certain sub-class in an extensive range of parliamentary systems, but rather as a new type of system in its own right. The principal issue appears to be whether the inherent properties of the prime ministerial variety of governance are sufficiently distinct, significant and different from the parliamentary system, however broadly understood, to give the former a status of a separate governance system from the methodological point of view. It should be observed that the contemporary British system, which serves as a foundation for our deliberations on the prime ministerial form of governance, has deviated from the classical or typical parliamentary system far enough to actually take the direction of a separate system of governance, namely prime ministerial governance. Firstly, this is evidenced by the removal of the monarch from the political system and establishing executive power as a virtually one-element entity concentrated in the Cabinet, and embodied by its leader. Secondly, the figure of Prime Minister is highly emphasized as he is elected ‘under the guise of common elections’ and he successfully monopolizes the work of his entire Cabinet, becoming a certain ‘trademark’ of this Cabinet, which is well supported by the principle of joint accountability of all Cabinet members, a principle that is exceptionally strictly and consistently implemented in the British system. The ongoing politological processes that tend to presidentialize and personalize politics are only accelerating these changes and making them even more apparent. The consequence in Britain is that it is the Prime Minister who accrues the power to govern and he by no means falls under the principle of classical parliamentary systems, where the government leader is only “the first among equals”. Thirdly, the House of Commons has practically lost its controlling power over the Cabinet, as primarily evidenced in the absence of a vote of no confidence, which would serve as a tool of political accountability of executive power before the legislative, the essence of any form of parliamentary governance. Fourthly, in a highly specific, deeply endemic party system which entails that various links between government and parliament typical of the parliamentary style of democracy are de facto transferred onto the internal party stage, this to an extent also explains the relevance of the division between government and opposition, a division which is neither as clear, nor as far-reaching as in the case of other parliamentary systems. All this allows us to conclude that the British system is sufficiently different to be deemed new in comparison to a typical or classical parliamentary system. The transformations that have taken place there have gone far beyond the proper, or classical, model of parliamentary governance thus forming not only a sub-class, but a separate type (or model) of governance

PRZEGLĄD PIŚMIENNICTWA

Stanisław Bożyk, Partie polityczne a Sejm RP, Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, Warszawa 2006, ss. 180

Reprezentacja polityczna w ujęciu doktryny francuskiej

The article presents the main principles of the French doctrine of the political representation. This doctrine refers to the concept of transference. According to her one entity transfers its rights and obligations to another entity. Transmission entity is represented (voter), while the entity for which the transfer is made is representative (member of parliament). Representation means so that the member of parliament speaks on behalf of the nation. The focal point of this concept is the belief of the fictional nation as a sovereign. As a result, the traditional doctrine of the French was of the view that the nation as something fictional can exist only in the parliament and can be expressed only by the parliamentarian. This position concluding cry that no nation outside of the representatives of the nation. The second element of the French approach was the assumption of a community dimension representation. Evidence of this was the representative mandate to exclude instructions, orders and command will vote. These two assumptions to this day is the essence of the French project of political representation.Artykuł nie zawiera abstraktu w języku polski

Precision of scoring radiation-induced chromosomal aberrations and micronuclei by unexperienced scorers

Purpose: Dose assessment plays an important role in case of radiological accidents and can be performed by scoring structural changes of chromosome morphology induced in cells by ionizing radiation. The results of such a test are biased by scorer experience, therefore, simple to learn assays are recommended to be used when fast analysis of a large amount of data is needed. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of two radiobiological assays – chromosomal aberrations and micronuclei – by unexperienced scorers with the reference values generated by an expert. Materials and methods: Each participant of an EU-funded two-week radiobiology course was asked to score Chinese hamster ovary cells exposed to gamma radiation up to 4 Gy. The congruence of students’ and expert’s scores at each dose and the coherence of the dose-response curve parameters between the students were investigated. Results: Micronucleus test tended to be faster and easier to learn than scoring chromosomal aberrations. However, both assays carried out by inexperienced students showed reasonable dose-response curves. Conclusions: In the case of a large radiological accident involving many casualties, the unexperienced scorers would support the process of biodosimetric triage by cytogenetic biological dosimetry

Procedural means of protecting the constitution against changes

This article discusses procedural means of protecting the constitution against changes. The starting point is the general remark that the constitution should be a durable and stable act, as it is the permanency of any constitution that is its inherent feature. Nevertheless, any rational legislator of the constitutional system must allow for the possibility of changing the constitution. However, any implementation of changes ought to be carried out with caution and only if absolutely necessary. Therefore, the mode of changing the constitution must be difficult enough (in comparison to passing ordinary laws) but also accomplishable. Consequently, the procedural side of any change of the constitution must be designed so as to, on the one hand, make the procedures of amending the constitution possibly complicated, but on the other hand those procedures must be realistic and implementable. That is why nowadays we can observe a whole range of procedural solutions concerning the process of changing the constitution, e.g. provisions relatively unchanged. The prerequisite of obtaining a qualified majority in the parliament is also a common mechanism in the process of changing the constitution. Sometimes changing the constitution must be approved by two consecutive parliaments, but a more frequent solution is a referendum-based procedure

The Constitutional Tribunal on the teaching of religion in a state school (selected problems)

Opracowanie charakteryzuje orzecznictwo Trybunału Konstytucyjnego dotyczące problematyki obecności nauki religii w szkołach publicznych w Polsce. Zagadnienie obecności religii w szkole publicznej jest dzisiaj jednym z głównych problemów w stosunkach państwa z kościołami i innymi związkami wyznaniowymi. Większość z tych problemów jest rozstrzygana przez Trybunał Konstytucyjny, który jednak zdaniem autora często formułuje tezy wątpliwe, niedostatecznie uzasadnione, czasami kontrowersyjne. Na poparcie tego twierdzenia autor przedstawia orzeczenie z 2 grudnia 2009 r. (w sprawie o sygnaturze akt U 10/07), w którym Trybunał zajął się kwestią zbadania konstytucyjności wliczania oceny z religii do średniej ocen ucznia. W ocenie autora, Trybunał uznając konstytucyjność wliczania tej oceny do średniej, przyjął błędną identyfikację rozstrzyganego problemuThe paper looks into the case-law of the Constitutional Tribunal concerning the teaching of religion in Polish state schools. The teaching of religion in a state school has long been attracting attention as a major issue in the relations between the state, churches and other religious organizations. Most of these are resolved by the Constitutional Tribunal, which, however, in the author's view, often advances theses that are debatable, inadequately justified and at times controversial. To support his assertion, the author highlights a decision of 2 December 2009 (file ref. U 10/07) in which the tribunal examined the constitutionality of including the grade in religion in the calculation of the overall pupil's performance. In the author's opinion, in acknowledging the constitutionality of such action, the tribunal assumed a misguided identification of the examined problem

LAW ON RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS IN POLAND AFTER 1991

The paper focuses on the analysis of the legal regulations governing the relations between the state and the church in Poland. Today, the constitutional regulations regarding the widely understood denominational issues are regarded to be a constitutional matter. This means that each constitution must contain at least those fundamental laws that regulate the individual sphere (freedom of conscience and freedom of religion) and the institutional (collective) sphere, the subject of which are the provisions regulating the state-church relations. It is recognised that only when those two are combined the constitutional matter regarding the religious denominational sphere is exhausted. The denominational matter, apart from the fact of being an obligatory element of each modern, comprehensive constitution, is also that fragment of its provisions which is always a controversial issue, both during the legislative process, and subsequently, when the law is to be implemented or executed. The most controversial issues in Poland (either when it comes to their legal articulation or practical application) include the general rule of equal rights granted to every denomination; the principle of independence and autonomy of the state and church; and the consensular form of relations between the state and churches other than the Roman Catholic Church. The controversies which occur are the best indication how sensitive the issue of religious denominations still is in Poland. The example of the law on religious denominations in Poland shows best, at least at the constitutional law level, that the so called constitution in book is often very far from the constitution in action

French model of post-legislative scrutiny

Artykuł podejmuje temat ewaluacji ustawodawstwa w parlamencie Francji. Francuski model oceny uchwalonego ustawodawstwa jest wysoce oryginalny i – w jakiejś mierze – niepowtarzalny. Rozstrzyga o tym przede wszystkim podniesienie działań ewaluacyjnych do rangi rozstrzygnięć konstytucyjnych i wyraźne uznanie, że tzw. ewaluacja polityk publicznych (évaluation des politiques publiques) jest jedną z funkcji parlamentu. Doświadczeń francuskich nie można raczej traktować jako wzorcowych dla ustanowienia procedur podobnej oceny w pracach analitycznych polskiego Sejmu. Te są bowiem prowadzone na zasadach ogólnego doradztwa naukowego i eksperckiego, które jednak z formalnego punktu widzenia nie są właściwą procedurą parlamentarną (jak ma to miejsce we Francji). Niemniej można sięgnąć po ogólny schemat metodologii ewaluacji, która niezależnie czy ocena uchwalonych ustaw prowadzona jest przez organy parlamentu (np. komisje) czy też podmioty wchodzące w skład Kancelarii Sejmu (np. BAS) może być zaadoptowany. Chodzi tu przede wszystkim o wprowadzenie dwóch poziomów takiej oceny, tj. poziomu oceny stopnia prawnej implementacji ustawy w życie (za pośrednictwem odpowiednich aktów wykonawczych) oraz poziomu właściwej oceny skutków jakie ustawa wywołuje (ocena merytoryczna). Wydaje się, że w ślad za rozwiązaniami francuskimi można by było również wprowadzić, jako rozwiązanie optymalne, temporalne założenia takiej kontroli, tj. okres sześciu miesięcy na ocenę tego, czy ustawa została przez rząd prawidłowo wprowadzona do obiegu prawnego oraz okres trzech lat na ocenę tego, czy skutki jakie ustawa wywołuje odpowiadają tym, jakie przewidywano w momencie przedłożenia projektu ustawy.The article deals with the subject of evaluation of legislation in the French parliament. The French model for the assessment of adopted legislation is highly original and – to some extent – unique. This is mainly determined by the increase of evaluation activities to the rank of constitutional decisions and a clear recognition that the so-called evaluation of public policies (évaluation des politiques publiques) is one of the functions of the parliament. French experience can not be treated as a model for the establishment of similar assessment procedures in the analytical work of the Polish Sejm. These are carried out on the basis of general scientific and expert advice, which, however, from a formal point of view, are not the proper parliamentary procedure (as is the case in France). However, one can reach for a general scheme of evaluation methodology, which regardless of whether the assessment of adopted laws is carried out by parliament bodies (eg committees) or entities that are part of the Sejm Chancellery (eg BAS) can be adopted. This is primarily about the introduction of two levels of such an assessment, i.e. the level of assessment of the legal degree of implementation of the Act (through the relevant implementing acts) and the level of proper impact assessment that the Act triggers (substantive evaluation). It seems that following the French solutions, one could also introduce, as a solution, optimal, temporal assumptions for such control, i.e. a period of six months to assess whether the law was correctly introduced by the government into the legal circulation and a period of three years to assess this whether the effects that the Act triggers correspond to what was expected at the time the bill was submitted