An article is devoted to the proceedings of a General Sejm session in the interregnum of 1733 (so-called convocational Sejm). The reflection is focused on actions of the archbishop of Gniezno — Teodor Potocki, at the time the prime senator and the president of the government. Achieving his political goals required to conduct a Sejm session smoothly. Potocki wanted to enact the law that would exclude political opponents of Stanisław Leszczyński in the future election. To ensure this and neutralize political rivals, the archbishop decided to break old-Polish parliamentary rules, consequently blocked the free discussion and refused to accept dissent announced by deputies. It caused an enormous political crisis, led to the questioning of the Sejm resolutions and, finally, to a failure of Leszczyński’s candidacy. The main purpose of the article is to show that the old-Polish mechanisms of the political system can be seen as feudal “deliberative democracy” based on freedom of political debate, unanimity in enacting laws, and weak government. By using an example of the Sejm in 1733 and its failure, the author tries to assess the causes and mechanisms of the crisis of old-Polish parliamentarism during the liberum veto era.
Artykuł poświęcony jest problemowi używania współczesnej terminologii praw-nej w badaniach naukowych dotyczących przednowoczesnego i przekonstytucyjne-go systemu prawnego. Główny przedmiot analizy to istnienie zasady rządów prawa w Rzeczpospolitej Polsko-Litewskiej między XVI a XVIII w. Autor stara się usta-lić czy jest w ogóle usprawiedliwione odwoływanie się do współczesnej idei rządów prawa by opisać system rządów w Rzeczpospolitej? A jeśli tak, to jak tego dokonać by uniknąć prezentyzmu?Autor stara się sformułować zespół cech dotyczących zasady rządów prawa, któ-re można by odnieść do Rzeczpospolitej Obojga Narodów. Próbuje też ustalić zestaw warunków, które były konieczne do rozwoju idei rządów prawa w przednowoczesnej rzeczywistości.
EN
The presented article is devoted to using present-day legal terminology in scientific re-search on pre-modern and pre-constitutional states’ legal systems. The main focus of analysis is the rule of law principle existence between the 16th and 18th centuries in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The author tries to establish whether this is even jus-tified to use the modern idea of the rule of law to describe the Polish-Lithuanian pre-par-titions political system? And, if so, how technically do that to avoid presentism?The author tries to formulate a set of features concerned with the rule of law prin-ciple applicable to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He also tries to determine the set of conditions necessary for the rule of law principle to blossom in pre-mod-ern reality fully.
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