Constitutional Limits of Individual's Freedoms

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(in Polish) Wiedza dotycząca norm Konstytucji i zagadnień ustrojowych, wchodząca w zakres nauczania w ramach przedmiotu „Prawo konstytucyjne”. Pożądana jest znajomość aktów normatywnych oraz podstawowej literatury z zakresu prawa konstytucyjnego, a także kierunków orzecznictwa Trybunału Konstytucyjnego. Zainteresowanie problematyką praw człowieka i sporami o ich rozumienie ułatwi udział w zajęciach.

Classroom

Course Description.

The course is focused on the idea of the culture of dialog and limitation between majorities and minorities as the foundation of freedom. It explores the meaning of dignity as the background of constitutional limits of freedom in the democratic state ruled by human rights and by interstices of procedures, from which freedom may grow.

Course Outline.

I. Introduction: individuals from the perspective of international, European and constitutional law. The origins and scope of the notion of individual rights in the Polish Constitution: values, dilemmas, compromises and their implementation in the basic law.

II. Dilemmas of the limits of freedom in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

III. The principles of the system of government and the individual rights. The meaning of the notion of dignity of the person and its role as the principle of the Polish Constitution. The issue of constitutional limits of freedom. Constitutional Conditions for the limitation of rights and freedoms. The principle of equality before the law.

IV. Constitutional regulation of freedoms and rights of the individual - interpretation and the current controversies concerning limits of individual rights and freedoms. The principle of proportional limitation, constitutional notion of the essence of freedoms and rights. The importance of the rule of decent legislation and the principle of exclusiveness of statutes and subsidiary nature of government issued regulations.

V. Constitutional obligations of the individual. Constitutional status of the person according to the judgements of Constitutional Tribunal.

1. Polish Constitution and the Standing Orders of the Sejm, Warszawa 2003.

2. Jurisprudence of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal in 2001 (Selection), Warszawa 2003.

3. M. Wyrzykowski (ed.): Constitutional Cultures, Warsaw 2003.

4. C. Sunstein: Against Positive Rights, East European Constitutional Review, Winter 1993.

5. J. Jabłońska-Bonca: Wprowadzenie do prawa. Introduction to law, Warszawa 2004.

6. R. Dworkin: Is democracy possible here ? Principles for a new political debate, Princeton and Oxford 2006.

7. R. Piotrowski: New technologies or new human rights: the right to a government by humans and the right to one’s own thoughts?, “Studia Iuridica” t. 76/2018.