University of Silesia in Katowice

Zygmunt Tobor

University of Silesia in Katowice

English abstract: The case whereby the President of the Republic of Poland applied the right of pardon towards individuals who had not been validly convicted has revived ongoing discussions regarding whether such an action is consistent with the Constitution. The problematic aspect in this regard is not only the admissibility of so-called individual abolition but also the very manner of granting pardon while bypassing the procedure provided for in the Code of Criminal Procedure. Since the contentious nature of the issue arises from ambiguities in the Constitution’s text, this study’s research objective is to present useful tools outside of this text that may assist in its interpretation. To achieve this, an analysis of legislative materials from sessions of the National Assembly’s Constitutional Commission is conducted, and the established practice (constitutional custom) concerning the problematic issues is discussed. The research conclusions warrant the thesis that these extratextual arguments provide strong justifications for specific interpretative hypotheses. Regarding the first issue, the hypothesis is that the right of pardon does not encompass individual abolition. The hypothesis concerning the second issue is the inadmissibility of a procedure that bypasses the Code of Criminal Procedure regulations.

Key words: power of pardon, legislative materials, established practice, legal text interpretation

Language: polish

Published: Number 1(2026), pp. 5–21.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2026.1.5

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University of Silesia

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to present a comparative analysis of the use of legislative materials in the process of statutory interpretation in Poland and Spain, by referring to statutes, theoretical literature and case law. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part shows that in difficult cases, when the text is not clear enough as an evidence of the legislator’s intention, other evidence should be sought, including the legislative materials. The second part delivers an analysis of the term ‘legislative materials’, followed by a study of particular examples of legislative materials, including bills and their justifications. It focuses especially on the issue of the Spanish exposiciones de motivos. Moreover, there is a reference to interpretative guidance contained in the legal regulations and to the ways in which legislative materials are used in case law. The third part of the paper responds, on the basis of Polish and Spanish theoretical literature, to some of the objections against the use of legislative materials, underlining its importance for the interpreting the law.

Keywords: legislative materials, legislative history, interpretation, intention, Spanish law, Polish law, ratio legis

Language: Original printed in Polish, English online translation

Received: 13.01.2018
Accepted: 19.04.2018

Published: Number 1(19)/2019, pp. 38-50

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2019.1.38ENG

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University of Silesia

Abstract: The article begins with a presentation of an interpretative tool in the form of materials from the legislative process (legislative materials, legislative history), including arguments offered in the theory of law in favour and against their use for interpretation purposes. These matters are then discussed with references to a specific type of interpretive problems, namely problems that stem from the grammatical constructions of the provisions of the law. The authors analyse five cases in which Polish courts reach for legislative materials in order to resolve doubts caused by sentence syntax, conjunctions or punctuation. The decisions issued vary – in their use of legislative materials courts deploy various other tools and values (e.g. vocabularies, formal logic, the ratio legis behind a provision or the rules of legislative procedure). The outcomes of such a confrontation are varied. Thus, the judgments presented here are a good illustration of the diversity of issues connected with the theoretical and practical aspects of the use of legislative materials in the process of interpreting the law.

Keywords: legislative history, legislative materials, statutory interpretation, grammatical problems

Language: English

Received: 02.10.2017
Accepted: 15.12.2017

Published: Number 2(17)/2018, pp. 18-34.

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Number of downloads: 505