Rafał Stybliński
I am going to refer in this post to the institution of direct democracy, which is the right of petition. The Constitution of the Republic of Poland stipulates in Article 63 [1]https://www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/konst/polski/2.htm that “Everyone shall have the right to submit petitions, applications and complaints in the public interest, his own or another person’s interest with his consent to public authorities and social organisations and institutions in connection with the tasks assigned by them in the field of public administration. The procedure for consideration of petitions, motions and complaints shall be specified by the Law”. Law of 5 September 2014. [2]https://www.dziennikustaw.gov.pl/D2014000119501.pdf describes this very procedure, indicating the rules for submitting and considering petitions.
The book “Iluzja demokracji bezpośredniej” [3]Ewa Nalewajko, Barbara Post, “Iluzja demokra bezpośredniej z doświadczeń transformacji ustrojowej w Polsce”, Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, … Continue reading describes exactly how the right of petition and its application functions. The authors of the publication, quoting one of the reports, write: “The basic criterion taken into account by the Commission when deciding on the further fate of the letter and on its course as a petition was, first of all, the inclusion in the letter of legislative proposals (to change the law or to enact it)”. Thus, we can see that the purpose of a petition to the Senate is to initiate the process of modifying the law. The success of direct democracy is a situation in which the Senate takes the legislative initiative, which is then passed by the Sejm.
Petitions can be submitted to any public authority with regard to the subject of the petition, including the Sejm and the Senate. The whole process is very well described on the Senate website in the document ‘Practical Guide to Petitions‘ [4]http://petycje.senat.edu.pl/uploads/drive/PDF/praktyczny%20przewodnik%20po%20petycjach.pdf, which is friendly to read, as well as accompanied by numerous graphics and scans. As the Senate website reads: “The Senate of the Republic of Poland, wishing to enable citizens to exercise their right to petition, amended its rules of procedure already on 20 November 2008 giving grounds for consideration of petitions addressed to the Senate” [5]https://www.senat.gov.pl/prace/petycje/, thus much earlier than it became possible for the Sejm.
Senator Mieczyslaw Augustyn, quoted by the authors [6]Senator Mieczyslaw Augustyn, PO, quoted in “The first public hearing was held in the Senate”, website no longer available, spoke as follows: “A petition,” said senator, for example, in this vein, “is the most accessible form of citizen initiative on legislation. We have the right to a referendum, but you have to collect 500,000 signatures, we have the right to a citizens’ legislative initiative, but you have to collect 100,000 signatures. And we have the right to a petition, which even a single citizen can submit.” The accessibility of this method of influencing legal reality is therefore very high.
The addressees of a petition are also obliged to provide reasons for the decision taken, so the petition does not go unheeded. What is more, ‘there is no principle of discontinuity of petitions in either the Sejm or the Senate, and the adoption of such a solution means that if the proceedings on a petition are not concluded before the end of a term, they will continue in the next one’. We can therefore see the significant advantages of petitions.
However, it is a so-called soft instrument, which means that “submitting it does not directly lead to decisions with legal effect”. Until 2019, the percentage of ‘negative’ decisions (we are talking about petitions to the Sejm), i.e. those in the case of which directly or indirectly (through desiderata) the demands and postulates were not taken into account, amounted to 87%. The decisions are documents with no legal force, to which their addressees, i.e. the Council of Ministers and individual ministries, must take a stand within thirty days. In practice, as the authors write, “during five years, considering 555 petitions submitted to the Sejm, the members of the PET decided to take a legislative initiative in the case of one in ten of them”. In other words, 53 decisions were made and 39 bills were submitted.
References
↑1 | https://www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/konst/polski/2.htm |
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↑2 | https://www.dziennikustaw.gov.pl/D2014000119501.pdf |
↑3 | Ewa Nalewajko, Barbara Post, “Iluzja demokra bezpośredniej z doświadczeń transformacji ustrojowej w Polsce”, Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Scientific Publishers Scholar, Warsaw, 2021 |
↑4 | http://petycje.senat.edu.pl/uploads/drive/PDF/praktyczny%20przewodnik%20po%20petycjach.pdf |
↑5 | https://www.senat.gov.pl/prace/petycje/ |
↑6 | Senator Mieczyslaw Augustyn, PO, quoted in “The first public hearing was held in the Senate”, website no longer available |