Government and society

Constitutional framework

The constitution of Poland’s postwar socialist state, the Polish People’s Republic, took effect in 1952 but was amended numerous times, most significantly in early 1989, when constitutional reforms worked out between the government and Solidarity were passed by the Sejm (legislature). Among the changes were the replacement of the Council of State by the office of president (a position that had been eliminated in 1952) and the reinstatement of the Senate, which had been abolished in 1946 in an allegedly rigged national referendum. The existing Sejm, with 460 members, became the lower house of the new legislature, and the Senate, or the upper house, was assigned 100 members. Additional reforms passed later in 1989 by the legislature included the guarantee of free formation of political parties and the return of the state’s official name to the Republic of Poland.

The new constitution of 1997, which replaced a 1992 interim constitution, was adopted in April by the National Assembly (Zgromadzenie Narodowe; as the Sejm and the Senate are referred to when they meet in a joint session to debate constitutional issues), approved in a national referendum in May, and promulgated in October. The constitution confirmed the mixed presidential-parliamentary form of government that had been established during the period 1989–92. Under its provisions the president is directly elected to not more than two five-year terms. The president serves as commander in chief of the armed forces, has the power (albeit restricted) to declare martial law or a state of emergency, and can veto an act of the Sejm (which in turn can override that veto with a three-fifths majority vote).

The president nominates the prime minister and, on the prime minister’s recommendation, the cabinet, subject to the Sejm’s approval, but the president cannot dismiss the government. Deputies in the Sejm and senators are popularly elected to four-year terms. Laws must be adopted by both houses. The Senate has the right to amend or reject a law passed by the Sejm. The Sejm may override the Senate’s decision with a majority vote. The Sejm appoints the members of the Constitutional Tribunal, the commissioner for civil rights protection (the ombudsman), the chairman of the Supreme Chamber of Control (the state audit commission), and the president of the Bank of Poland. The main executive power is vested in the prime minister and the Council of Ministers, who are responsible to the Sejm. The government can be terminated by the Sejm only by a constructive vote of no confidence. The prime minister has a role comparable to that of a chancellor in the German political system.

Local government

Local government in Poland is organized on three levels. The largest units, at the regional level, are the województwa (provinces), which were consolidated and reduced in number from 49 to 16 in 1999. At the next level are some 300 powiaty (counties or districts), followed by about 2,500 gminy (towns and rural communes). The last are the fundamental territorial units within Poland. The status of the capital city of Warsaw is regulated by a special legislation. Both powiaty and gminy are governed by councils, elected to four-year terms. These councils in turn elect the heads of local administration. The representatives to the sejmiki wojewódzkie (provincial legislature) also are elected to four-year terms. The head of provincial administration, the wojewoda, is nominated by the prime minister.

Justice

The constitution guarantees the independence of the judiciary. The supreme representative of the judiciary is the National Council of the Judiciary. Poland has a Supreme Court and other special judicial bodies (including the High Administrative Court, military courts, and industrial tribunals) as well as general courts, comprising appellate, provincial, and district courts. General courts deal with criminal, civil, and family matters; commercial courts deal with civil law disputes between businesses. The Constitutional Tribunal provides judicial review of legislation. The Tribunal of State reviews violations of the constitution and other laws by the top state officials.

Political process

Beginning in 1948, Poland was governed by the Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP; Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza), the country’s communist party, which was modeled on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The postwar government was run as a dual system in which state organs were controlled by parallel organs of the PUWP. The executive branch of government, therefore, was in effect the PUWP, with the party’s first secretary acting as the de facto head of state and the most powerful authority. The party’s Political Bureau, or Politburo, operated as the central administration, and the party ensured its control over all offices and appointments by use of the nomenklatura, a list of politically reliable people.

Two other parties, the United Peasant Party (Zjednoczone Stronnictwo Ludowe; ZSL) and the Democratic Party (Stronnictwo Demokratyczne; SD), were permitted to exist but only as entirely subservient allies of the PUWP. However, in 1989 economic and political problems obliged the government to recognize the independent trade union Solidarity (which had been banned not long after it came into being in 1980) and allow it to contest at least some seats in a general election. The PUWP and its allies were guaranteed 65 percent of the seats in the Sejm, but Solidarity won all the rest and all but one of those in the Senate, going on to form Poland’s first postcommunist government with the support of the SD and the ZSL, which broke their alliance with the PUWP. In 1990 the PUWP voted to disband and reform as the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland (Socjaldemokracja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej; SdRP). In the same year, Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Solidarity, was elected president.

Thereafter, however, as Poles experienced the costs of economic reform, support for Solidarity waned, and the party split into several smaller groups. In the first completely free elections, in 1991, no party obtained more than one-eighth of the vote, which led to a succession of short-lived coalition governments. In the 1993 legislative election the Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, or PSL, as the ZSL was renamed) and the Democratic Left Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej; SLD), a coalition comprising the SdRP and All Poland Trade Unions Alliance (Ogólnopolskie Porozumienie Zwiazków Zawodowych; OPZZ), won a majority of seats and formed a coalition government. In the presidential election of 1995, Wałęsa was defeated by a former communist, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who was reelected in 2000. Nevertheless, there was no fundamental change in economic and political policy: all postcommunist governments gave high priority to the integration of Poland into the EU and NATO.

Before the 1997 parliamentary election, the fragmented political right united under the banner of the Solidarity Electoral Action (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność; AWS), which was later reorganized as the Solidarity Electoral Action of the Right (AWSP). In the decade following, other leading political parties were the SLD, the PSL, the leftist Union of Labour (Unia Pracy; UP), the liberal-democratic Freedom Union (Unia Wolności; UW), and the centre-right Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość; PiS) and Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska; PO) parties. Poland grants universal suffrage at age 18.

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