Legal History in Poland: Research and Instruction The early Polish historians were aware of the shortcomings of the extinct Rcspublica, yet their feelings were that not everything what they found in the old-time Constitution deserved contempt. True, they knew that after 1652 there was a considerable constitutional deterioration. The year 1652 witnessed a precedential use of liberum veto, a device which allowed one individual to break off a parliamentary session irrevocably. This was tantamount to the absurd interpretation of the principle of unanymous consent, previously more reasonably apprehended. The historians were aware that earlier, for one century and a half (from the end of 15'*’ until the mid of the 17'*’ centuries), the system worked smoothly. So, within formally binding unanymous consent system, there must have existed certain mechanisms that prevented the parliamentary sessions from being broken up by minority as against the majority. To study these legal devices appeared to be an urgent need. Likewise, the historians subconsciously felt that the history of the extinct Nobiliary Republic deserved studies for other reasons. The Respublica seemed so unique in its development. It provided a real contrast with the countries surrounding it. While the latter, starting from the 16'*’ century on, slowly began to build up absolutism, the Republic followed the path of democracy. True, it was the democracy limited to the nobility because only the nobles enjoyed full civic rights, but the nobility of the Republic was the largest European nobility, several times as large as that of other countries of the time (only Spanish and Hungarian nobles seemed to come closer to those of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth- as regards their numerical strength). In other words one might sav that by the standards of the time a relatively large section of the society of the Respublica had an effective share in the government of the country.^ The Republic had a limited monarch who, as has been said, from1573 could be impeached of proceeding contrary to law. Indeed, he was a contradiction in terms when compared with most monarchs of Europe. He was rather a president for life, highly limited in his prerogatives. Also fromthe beginning of the 16'*’ century the Republic provided for the seperation of powers. The king could not legislate, his business was only to implement laws. Legislative power was vested in the Parliament (Sejm). Last but not least, the Republic provided for a series of significant civic rights cxtend(jd to the nobility. These rights protected the latter against the arbitrarv maneuvers of State power. Thanks to them, the nobleman could not be - In fact the Respuhlica was a multi-ethnic organism. So its formal name: the Republic of the Two Nations, may be misleading. In the peak of its development the Commonwealth in the territorial sense exceeded one million square kilometers. Among the Commonwealth nobles one might therefore easily detect for instance also the upper strata of Ukrainian or Byelorussian society, the Germans of so called Ro\ al Prussia and the like. ’ On this cf. an interesting discussion by Norman Davies in his God's Playground, A History of Poland, vol. I, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1981. 307
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=