On Justices of the Peace in the Second and Third Polish Republic – Remarks from a Legal Historian

Abstract

The article is an elaboration on the institution of justices of the peace in Poland in the years 1918–2021. In the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), it was conducted in three tracks. The initiator of the first steps consisting in unifying district regulations, reorganising and taking over the judiciary was the government and the Ministry of Justice. The article uses the comparative law, dogmatic and auxiliary-reporting methods. From February 1919, these activities were supported and approved by the Legislative Sejm (later the Sejm). From November 1919, the burden of work was taken over by the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland. From this point of view, it will allow to resolve the research problem of the article: to what extent the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland contributed to the formation of the institution of justices of the peace contained in the regulation of the President of the Republic of Poland Law on the System of Courts of February 6, 1928, in the Third Polish Republic (since 1989). The March Constitution clearly defined two forms of participation of the social factor in common courts: justices of the peace and jury courts. On November 4, 2021, the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda submitted to the Sejm a draft act on courts of the peace and a draft act – Provisions Introducing the Act on Courts of the Peace. Due to this, after more than 100 years, work on the institution of justices of the peace was resumed. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the basic differences and similarities in legal regulations and the functioning of this institution in the Second and Third Polish Republics. The article uses archival materials, minutes of the proceedings of the Codification Commission of the Second Republic, legal literature of the Second Republic and current literature on the subject.