CONSTITUTIONAL RULE OF THE EQUALITY OF CHURCHES AND OTHER CONFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS (Konstytucyjna zasada równouprawnienia kosciolów i innych zwiazkow wyznaniowych)

• Authors: Szymanek Jaroslaw
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The Constitution in art. 25 passage 1 proclaims the rule according to which 'churches and other confessional associations are egalitarian'. This rule, taking into account the lack of an explicitly defined chapter, introduces the most important element of this system, i.e. the lack of focus on any church or other confessional associations. The sine qua non condition of separating the sacrum and profanum areas is the equality of religious organisations, which means that it is not allowed to discriminate or favour some of them in comparison to others; that rule was probably the most relevant feature of the system of connection of the state and the church in every application version. Therefore it should be assumed that the equality rule as the starting point of the whole regulation included in art. 25 of the Constitution constitutes - especially in comparison to other rules articulated in art. 25, i.e. impartiality, autonomy and independence of confessional associations, as well as bilateralism of regulating relation of the state and the church - the equivalent of the system of division, which was expressed in this way in the Constitution, admittedly only implicite, but nevertheless quite clearly. The unequivocality of the system of division is markedly confirmed by the catalogue of rules shaping relations between the state and the church, which on the one hand just determine the system of division, and on the other hand fulfil in this way a very distinct guarantee role in relation to the equality rule. Thus the equality, by the power of the constitutional legislator, became the key standard to specify the institutional way of relation of the state to the confessional issue, thus fulfilling the role of a standard both 'opening' the whole group of standards and values defining the adopted way of arranging relations between the state and confessional associations (in art. 25 and 53 of the Constitution), and a standard to a large extent protected by all other standards of the constitutional characteristics of relation of the state towards confessional associations. The fact of such a specifically understood binary nature of the rule of equality (guaranteeing and guaranteed standard at the same time) best confirms its constitutional significance, as well as its basic and most important sense, which is an indirect, tacite undertaken settlement of the system of division between the state and the church.

Keywords

EN

CONFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS; DIVISION BETWEEN STATE AND CHUCH; EQUALITY OF CHURCHES & CONFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS; SEPARATING THE SACRUM - PROFANUM SEPARATING

Discipline

• LAW_&_ADMINISTRATION: LAW & ADMINISTRATION

• Publisher: Instytut Nauk Prawnych PAN / Institute of Legal Studies PAN
• Journal: Studia Prawnicze
• Year: 2009
• Issue: 1-2(179-180)
• Pages: 161-201
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Szymanek Jaroslaw

• Jaroslaw Szymanek, Uniwersytet Warszawski, ul. Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10PLAAAA071728