Recent Constitutional Jurisprudence Concerning the European Union: Some Remarks on 2010 Judgments of the Polish Constitutional Court

摘要

The author discusses two recent judgments of the Constitutional Court of Poland dealing with different aspects of the relationship between Polish constitutional law and EU law. The first decision dealt with the compatibility of the Lisbon Treaty with the Polish Constitution and the competence of the Polish institutions to ratify the Treaty; the second with the rather technical question of the Polish government’s competence to implement EU regulations in Poland by adopting administrative regulations. In the first case the court held that ratification of the Treaty was in line with the Polish Constitution but, not unlike the German Constitutional Court, drew up a final line of competencies that could not constitutionally be transferred to the EU. In the second case, the Court concluded that, even if European Union regulations were directly binding and effective in the Member States, in exceptional cases these could legislate in order to ensure full effectiveness of Union law; however should this be done by administrative regulations adopted by the Polish government, the same requirements as to the precise designation of their framework and scope by the delegating act should apply as for the adoption of implementing regulations for Polish statutes.