Articles

State of Emergency and State without a Name in Carl Schmitt’s Thought. Suggestion of a Separation

Mgr Wojciech Engelking

University of Warsaw

Abstract: The concept of a state of emergency is one of the most frequently cited elements of the thought of the German philosopher of the law and political theorist Carl Schmitt. In its discussions, however, the conceptualization of the state of emergency, which Schmitt proposed in 1924 in his juridical comments on Article 48 of the Weimar Republic’s constitution, is often linked with the theory of Ausnahmezustand from Political Theology (1922). Such a juxtaposition is a mistake, because Schmitt was not a consistent thinker and his texts can be mutually contradictory. I propose, therefore, to separate the state of emergency from Ausnahmezustand – translated from German literally as a state without a name. The main difference between them consists in the different types of legitimacy. The state of emergency from the Constitution of the Weimar Republic finds its legitimacy in this document from 1919, however, read by Schmitt in a way that in his Constitutional Theory (1928) he referred to as relativization of the constitution. For the state without a name, as not being included in the legal order and the equivalent of a miracle in theology, such legitimacy is impossible. In order to find it, one must refer to other Schmitt’s works than the strictly judicial ones. I believe that the state without a name may be legally valid – in a word: not a coup d’état – if we acknowledge that Schmitt’s political theology is not just a methodological project that translates theological notions into political and legal ones, but a wider proposal rooted in the faith in Revelation. Therefore, this figure from the work of the German thinker in which the state of emergency finds its legitimacy is taken from St. Paul’s letters; it is the figure of a katechon: the one who comes and stops the world from disintegration. The use of such legitimacy emphasizes the reluctance to accept modernity, which Schmitt did exhibit, and presents him as a thinker who continued the medieval way of thinking, which is completely incompatible with the strictly modern concept of a state of emergency.

Keywords: Carl Schmitt, state of emergency, state without a name, katechon, political theology

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(19)/2019, pp. 15-26

Application of the Transmission Easement Regulations as an Example of the ‘State of Exception’ Law

Dr hab. Arkadiusz Barut

University of Wroclaw

Abstract: The subject of the article is an analysis of civil courts’ case law in terms formulated by Giorgio Agamben and Judith Butler, that is, in terms of law as a ‘state of exception’, a purely arbitrary practice that appears to be a parody of law. The author indicates aspects of such ‘law’: the blurring of the boundaries between the law and purely factual activities (in Agamben’s terminology: ‘life’), which may take the form of violence that no longer cares for its legitimacy or which reduces the law to ‘pure form’, that is, the creation and application of rules completely in abstract from their ethical evaluation and social consequences. In Foucault’s terminology, both these processes can be represented as a rebirth of sovereignty in the field of governmentality, the parody of the law being justified by the needs of population management, but in reality it is the result of a power’s strive for self-preservation. There are, as Butler defines, petty sovereigns who allegedly only quasi-technically apply the law articulated in full in the statute, and in fact act fully arbitrarily. One of their methods is to simulate the creation or application of law by taking away a particular meaning from words, in particular from legal concepts. The result is a departure from the idea of separation of powers and the postulate of empowerment of the addressee of legal norms, sometimes preserving the fiction of the latter’s agency as a kind of Agamben’s ‘pure form of law’. The author states that an example of such a process is the case law of the Polish Supreme Court and general courts regarding the possibility of acquisitive prescription of transmission easement by transmission companies. He indicates that the position that won in this case law completely deviates from the contents of the statute and the well-established understanding of civil law concepts, with the result of depriving property owners of their legal rights.

Keywords: state of exception, Agamben, Butler, transmission easement

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(19)/2019, pp. 5-14

Affirmative amnesia and conservative crits. Some remarks on the condition of critical legal thought in Central and Eastern Europe

Prof. dr hab. Adam Sulikowski

University of Wrocław

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to analyze the causes and effects of two phenomena, which can be considered as characteristic of the critical legal discourse in Central and Eastern Europe. The first phenomenon is sometimes termed as „affirmative amnesia”. It consists of the abandonment of critical methodology by legal scholars who have dealt with the Marxist critique of the neoliberal law for the major period of their careers. The author tries to diagnose the cause of this phenomenon. The second of these trends lies in the fact that the critical tools that are used on the West mostly by left-wing thinkers, in Central and Eastern Europe are applied by conservative rightists.

Keywords: affirmative amnesia, critical legal thought, conservatism

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(8)/2014, pp. 77-87

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The Political in the Polish Analytical Legal Theory

Dr Michał Stambulski

University of Wrocław

Abstract: The article examines the concept of the political in the Polish analytical theory of law. This subject was not a direct object of considerations of the authors who worked in this vein. However, the legitimisation of the legal system, sources of law, and the interpretation of the constitution can be considered as problems related to the political. They give rise to the issues surrounding the political within the Polish analytical theory of law. When these problems are considered from the perspective of analytical theory, a vision of the desired society emerges. Frank admission to the problems of the political in analytical theory opens up a new field of research. However, this requires theoreticians of law to change the language they habitually use. Such an opening implies the need to introduce the language of political philosophy within the theory of law and to develop new criteria for validating theoretical statements.

Keywords: theory of law, the political, legitimacy, sources of law, constitutional interpretation

Language: Polish

Received: 25.06.2018
Accepted: 06.09.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 64-73.

Normative Indication the Method of Taking into Account the Expiration of the Period of Limitation of Claims as a Choice motivated by Social Policy Considerations

Dr hab. Joanna Kuźmicka-Sulikowska

University of Wrocław

Abstract: The article presents an important aspect of the civil law limitation period of claims, namely whether – and if so, how – the expiration of the limitation period for a claim brought before a court is taken into consideration by the court. This issue is presented in such a way as to show the relationship between the motivation which the legislator is guided by – social
policy considerations – and its choice of the method of taking into account the expiration of the limitation period. The reflections start with a presentation of the subject matter, followed by an indication of the arguments presented in legal literature in support of each of the two competing ways of taking into account the expiration of the limitation period, that is, ex officio or only when the person against whom the claim is due raises an objection. This is done while demonstrating the connections between views in this area and the acceptance of socialist or liberal concepts. Against this background, there are shown changes in solutions in the discussed area related to unwanted social phenomena that appeared in the practice of the use of electronic enforcement procedure provided for by the Polish Code of Civil Procedure. The author also describes the construction, which is strongly motivated by social considerations (presented in the text), introduced by the Act of 13 April 2018 amending the Civil Code, which brings significant changes in the manner of taking into account the expiration of the period of limitation of claims, with the resulting particular dualism in this area of Polish civil law. Among other things, the text discusses the flexibility of the introduced regulation (e.g. stipulating as a rule for the court to take into account the expiration of limitation of claim claimed from the consumers, but with a possibility of departing from the rule). Furthermore, the assumptions indicated in the justification for the aforementioned Act are confronted with the possibility of achieving the desired state thanks to the wording of the provisions introduced by said Act.

Keywords: limitation of claims, social policy, manner of taking into account the expiration of the limitation period, consumer protection

Language: Polish

Received: 04.07.2018
Accepted: 25.08.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 10-23.

Political Character of the Copyright on the Example of its Inconsistency with the Indigenous People’s Vision of the World

Mgr Mateusz Wojtanowski

University of Wrocław

Abstract: The article deals with an inconsistency between the indigenous vision of the world and copyright. The author refers to the category of the political as the proper one to reflect this friction. The work embraces influential intuition of Carl Schmitt on the relationship between politicality and conflict. The author assumes that what can be treated as an expression of political vision (i.e. as something which is not neutral) is political. This approach does not require direct link with the traditionally understood sphere of politics to discern the realm of political.

Keywords: indigenous people, copyright, the political, conflict

Language: Polish

Received: 13.06.2018
Accepted: 07.09.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 86-96.

Republican Party of Minnesota v. White as a Step Towards Greater Politicisation of the Judicial Election in the USA?

Dr Jacek Srokosz

University of Opole

Abstract: The article presents the US Supreme Court judgment issued in 2002 in case Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, in which the Court held unconstitutional the clauses which introduced restrictions in presenting the candidates’ views on controversial legal and social issues during the judicial election campaign in Minnesota. The article discusses the essence of the judicial election, the limitations for the candidates during electoral campaigns, and the general dispute about how judges are selected in the US. Against this background, the facts of the case, the decisions of the courts of first and second instances and of the Supreme Court are presented, as well as Antonin Scalia’s argumentation justifying the ruling and the dissenting opinions. The author’s goal is to analyse the Supreme Court’s ruling in the context of its critics’ forecasts that it would result in politicisation of the judicial election process leading to a lowering of the authority of the judiciary and the emergence of doubts about the impartiality and independence of judges.

Keywords: judicial election, politicisation, Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, impartiality and independence of judges, accountability of judges, freedom of speech, electoral campaign

Language: Polish

Received: 13.06.2018
Accepted: 10.09.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 51-63.

Legal Sciences and the Problem of the Political: The Perspective of Critical Jurisprudence

Dr Rafał Mańko

University of Amsterdam

Abstract: The growing interest in the connections between legal phenomena and the political (das Politische, le politique) justifies an analysis of the problem of the relationship of legal sciences towards the political. The article focuses on two juridical sub-disciplines: analytical legal theory and legal dogmatics, and the analysis is conducted from the perspective of critical jurisprudence, a juristic application of critical theory. Towards this end, first the concept of ‘the political’ is defined, along the lines of Chantal Mouffe, as a dimension of antagonism, which lies at the foundation of any society. The political, understood in this way, must be differentiated both from ‘politics’ and from ‘policies’. As far as analytical legal theory is concerned, the article claims that it is programmatically (yet tacitly) political, as it affirms the juridical form as such, abstracting from its concrete content. As far as legal dogmatics is concerned, the article claims, following Sawa Frydman, that the dogmatician, despite his declared apoliticality, when performing a doctrinal interpretation of law, makes in fact decisions which are not only interpretive, but also political ones, setting subsequent stages in the antagonistic struggles within society.

Keywords: legal science, the political, antagonism, analytical legal theory, legal dogmatics, critical legal theory

Language: Polish

Received: 13.06.2018
Accepted: 04.09.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 38-50.

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Apoliticality in Jurisprudence. The Crisis of the Idea and the Phenomenon of Populism

Prof. dr hab. Adam Sulikowski

University of Wrocław

Abstract: The topic of the article is the current crisis of the idea of the apolitical nature of jurisprudence and the relationship between this crisis and the phenomenon of populism. In the first part of the study, the author puts forward a thesis on the post-theological and liberal character of the idea, reconstructing its genealogy. The next part discusses the impact of first-wave populism (1930s and 1940s) on the status of the title idea, focusing primarily on authoritarian – Nazi and Stalinist – populisms. In the next part, the author diagnoses the causes of the current crisis of the title idea after the period of its demo-liberal reappointment.

Keywords: apoliticality, jurisprudence, discourse, populism, crisis, post-theology, liberalism

Language: Polish

Received: 13.06.2018
Accepted: 17.08.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 74-85.

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The Political Character of the (Theory of) Interpretation of Law. Stanley Fish’s Neo-pragmatist Perspective

Mgr Jakub Łakomy

University of Wrocław

Abstract: In this paper, I analyse the political character of the interpretation of law and the political nature of the theory of legal interpretation from Stanley Fish’s neo-pragmatist perspective. In the first part of the text, I define the concept of politics and the political, borrowing from Chantal Mouffe. I clearly distinguish between the political, politics, and policy; this article uses the first concept (the political). In the second part of the article, I characterize hermeneutic universalism as one of the approaches to the problem of legal interpretation.

In the third part, following the characteristics of the concepts of interpretive communities as defined by Stanley Fish, I draw conclusions about the political nature of the interpretation of law and the theory of the interpretation of law. In conclusion, I analyse the possibilities of building a theory of legal interpretation that internalises the inherently political character of knowledge by analyzing the concept of post-analytical philosophy proposed in literature by Andrzej Bator.

Keywords: jurisprudence, the political, neopragmatism, interpretive community, hermeneutic universalism, interpretation

Language: Polish

Received: 13.06.2018
Accepted: 13.08.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 24-37.

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Number of downloads: 73