dialogue

Articles 55a and 55b of the IPN Act and the Dialogue about the Holocaust in Poland

Dr Katarzyna Liszka

University of Wrocław

English abstract: Relations between the Holocaust, memory, and law are constantly reconceptualized. In the second decade of the 21st century there is no clear consensus on the way the Holocaust, memory, and law are or should be interconnected, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. A striking example of the new dynamics of those tensions is an amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, which in January 2018 inserted Articles 55a and 55b. The paper states that these controversial provisions (later withdrawn) should be understood as specific memory laws in response to the transnational memory of the Holocaust and the non-consensual dialogue on the Jedwabne pogrom in Polish society. The paper shows the law as a result of a certain dialogue, a voice in the dialogue, and an attempt to limit this dialogue – as well as the effects of such limitation. The paper adopts Leszek Koczanowicz’s conception of dialogue, Natan Sznaider’s description of the transnational Holocaust memory, as well as the idea of the future-oriented ethics of never again, and Eviatar Zerubavel’s concept of a conspiracy of silence in order to frame the context and meaning of the emergence, short life, disappearance, and traces of the law. Although these articles “refract” criminalization of the Holocaust and genocide negationism, understood in the context of Polish historical politics, they are themselves close to a specific form of denial, i.e. denial of the Jedwabne massacre. A recollection of the Polish memory law casts a shadow on the future, as a threat exists that the law might appear again.

Keywords: transnational memory of the Holocaust, ethics of never again, politics of time, dialogue, dialogical cosmopolitanism, Jedwabne debate, memory law

Language: English

Published: Number 3(21)/2019, pp. 81-94.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2019.3.81

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Statement of reasons for a dissenting opinion as a dialogical utterance on the example of selected rulings of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal

Dr Maciej Wojciechowski

University of Gdańsk

English abstract: This paper claims that the statement of reasons for a dissenting opinion is a dialogical utterance. Due to the limitations imposed by the secrecy of judicial deliberations it is impossible to describe the direct exchange of arguments between the members of a judicial panel. To some extent, however, we can assume that the presented opinion of the court and a dissenting opinion represent the end result of such deliberations. It is not the same, however, to call both of them examples of dialogue. Real-time dialogue consists of a multitude of utterances of people taking part in a discussion. In the case of the final statement of reasons of the judgment and of the dissenting opinion, the number of utterances is in general limited to two separate large blocks of sentences, each block being one utterance. For this reason we can distinguish between the notion of ‘dialogue’ and that of ‘dialogical utterance’. Such a distinction was proposed in Polish theory of literature in the 1970s by J. Lalewicz. According to Lalewicz, a dialogical utterance depends on the preceding opinion, and its main feature is the ability to become a reference to that opinion. Apart from presenting forms of dialogicality, the article aims to explain these forms by presenting features other than the personal style of legal writing of a given judge. Three factors that might explain the higher or lower level of dialogicality in dissenting opinions are presented. The first factor is of an institutional nature, that is, the way work in the court is organised. The second factor is what I call a potential for an argument. Finally, the third one is the axiological importance of a given case.

Keywords: dissenting opinion, dialogical utterance, dialogue, judicial deliberations, statement of reasons for a court judgment, Constitutional Tribunal, legal disagreement

Language: Polish

Received: 06.06.2017
Accepted: 22.08.2017

Published: Number 1(16)/2018, pp. 69-82.

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Number of downloads: 56

Philosophical Roots of the Dialogical Concept of Law

Dr Anna Rossmanith

University of Warsaw

Abstract: The main task which I pose for myself is to indicate the philosophical roots of the dialogical concept of law. First and foremost, I would like to present dialogue in the context of ancient Greek philosophy and in the context of the classicists of the philosophy of dialogue. Furthermore, I seek phenomenological bases for constructing the dialogical concept of law. The phenomenological method, starting with its classical Husserlian form, has undergone many changes. Thanks to the indication of new horizons of phenomenology by Emmanuel Levinas, discovering dialogical consciousness and the subject constituted in being with the Other are possible. The reference point of reflections on the concept of law is the relationship with the Other as an ethical relationship. Philosophy of dialogue is a certain possible prism of thinking about the social, public, and institutional space. It is thinking through the prism of dialogue (speaking), but also through the third who contributes discourse relevant to what is said. Law as the third, as the mediating element, is a co-constituting element of the entire legal world.

Language: English

Keywords: dialogue, philosophy of dialogue, encounter, phenomenology, the Other, existentialism, subject, ethical relationship, difference, logos

Published: Number 2(13)/2016, pp. 51-58.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2016.2.51

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Number of downloads: 114