¹ K. Składowski, ‘Zasada równości wyborów a wybory do Senatu w kodeksie wyborczym’ [The principle of equality of elections and the election to the Senate in the Election Code], in K. Skotnicki (ed.), Kodeks wyborczy. Wstępna ocena [The Election Code. Preliminary Assessment] (Wydawnictwo Sejmowe 2011) p. 268. See also J. Buczkowski, Podstawowe zasady prawa wyborczego III Rzeczypospolitej [The Basic Principles of the Electoral Law of the Third Republic] (Wydawnictwo UMCS 1998) p. 39; B. Banaszak, Prawo konstytucyjne [Constitutional Law] (C.H. Beck 2008) p. 339; M. Chmaj and W. Skrzydło, System wyborczy w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej [The Electoral System in the Republic of Poland] (Wolters Kluwer 2014) p. 45; K. Skotnicki, ‘System wyborczy do Sejmu i Senatu’ [The electoral system for the Sejm and the Senate], in D. Górecki (ed.), Polskie prawo konstytucyjne [Polish Constitutional Law] (Wolters Kluwer 2012) p. 115 at p. 117.

² Garlicki, L., Polskie prawo konstytucyjne. Zarys wykładu [ Polish Constitutional Law. An Outline of a Lecture ] (Lexix Nexis 2014) p. 147 Google Scholar . The author also stresses that these principles do not exhaust the catalogue of all the conditions necessary for the proper conduct of democratic elections. He gives an example of an additional principle – the principle of political pluralism – which he considers to be an essential element of the electoral system. In recent years, much attention has been focused on the principle of free elections, which is considered autonomous in relation to the classical set of electoral principles (see e.g. G. Kryszeń, Standardy prawne wolnych wyborów parlamentarnych [Legal Standards of Free Parliamentary Elections] (Temida2 2007)).

³ D. Dudek, ‘Konstytucyjna aksjologia wyborów’ [The constitutional axiology of elections], in F. Rymarz (ed.), Iudices electionis custodes. Sędziowie kustoszami wyborów. Księga Pamiątkowa Państwowej Komisji Wyborczej [Iudices electionis custodies. Judges as Custodians of Elections. The Memorial Book of the National Electoral Commission] (Wydawnictwo Krajowego Biura Wyborczego 2007) p. 43 at p. 45-46.

⁴ Składowski, supra n. 1, p. 271.

⁵ Art. 96 § 2, Art. 97 § 2, Art. 127 § 1, Art. 169 § 2 The Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2^nd April 1997, <www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/konst/angielski/kon1.htm>, visited 22 October 2018.

⁶ The above criteria of substantive equality were formally approved by the Venice Commission in the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters published in 2002. See the discussion of the document below.

⁷ The Electoral Law for Councils of Communes, County Councils and Regional Councils of 1998, in force until 2011, allowed for the creation of such constituencies, leaving, however, in Art. 90 § 1 appropriate arrangements in this respect to individual commune councils.

⁸ Powierzchnia i ludność w przekroju terytorialnym w 2013r [The Area and Population in the Territorial Cross-Section in 2013] (Central Statistical Office 2013) p. 28.

⁹ The recent amendment of the Election Code, which came into force on 31 January 2018, only slightly limited the equality-damaging impact of the regulations passed in 2011, by restricting application of the first-past-the-post system to communes with a population equal to or less than 20,000. The amendment left principally unchanged the basic mode of implementation in Poland’s election law of the idea of substantive equality of elections. See the further analyses below.

¹⁰ S. Grabowska and K. Składowski, ‘Podstawowe pojęcia z zakresu prawa wyborczego’ [Basic concepts of electoral law], in S. Grabowska and K. Składowski (eds.), Prawo wyborcze do parlamentu w wybranych państwach europejskich [The Right to Vote in Parliamentary Elections in Selected European Countries] (Zakamycze 2006) p. 16.

¹¹ Grabowska and Składowski, supra n. 10, p. 16-17; see also Buczkowski, supra n. 1, p. 141: ‘The voting power of every voter is equal, which is expressed in the influence that this vote exerts on the final result of the election’; Chmaj and Skrzydło, supra n. 1, p. 49-50: ‘Equality in the substantive aspect means that the power (significance) of each elector’s vote should be equal (the same)’; W. Kręcisz, ‘System wyborczy’ [Electoral System], in W. Skrzydło (ed.), Polskie prawo konstytucyjne [Polish Constitutional Law] (Morpol 2003) p. 211-236; as well as A. Burda, ‘Polskie prawo państwowe’ [Polish State Law] (PWN 1977) p. 95.

¹² Składowski, supra n. 1, p. 271; see also Chmaj and Skrzydło, supra n. 1, p. 49; Bąkiewicz, M., System wyborczy do samorządu terytorialnego w Polsce na tle europejskim [ Electoral System for Local Self-government in Poland against the European Background ] (Adam Marszałek 2008) p. 54 Google Scholar .

¹³ R. Ghevontian, ‘La notion de sincérité du scrutin’, <www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/nouveaux-cahiers-du-conseil-constitutionnel/la-notion-de-sincerite-du-scrutin>, visited 22 October 2018.

¹⁴ 95 BVerfGE 335, 353 (1997).

¹⁵ H. Smekal and L. Yyhnanek, ‘Equal voting power under scrutiny: Czech Constitutional Court on the 5% threshold in the 2014 European Parliament Elections’, 12 EuConst (2016) p. 148 at p. 153.

¹⁶ Reynolds v Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964).

¹⁷ Chryssogonos, K. and Stratilatis, C., ‘Limits of Electoral Equality and Political Representation’, 8 EuConst (2012) p. 9 at p. 17-18Google Scholar .

¹⁸ Thus, the concept of substantive equality of elections in Polish election law is based on the first of the criteria formulated by the Venice Commission in the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters (see supra n. 6). The criteria were reiterated recently in the Report on Constituency Delineation and Seat Allocation (Venice Commission, Study No. 873/2017, <www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL-AD(2017)034-e>, visited 22 October 2018).

¹⁹ See Chmaj and Skrzydło, supra n. 1, p. 49-50: ‘In the parliamentary and local self-government elections [the substantive equality of elections] is expressed in determining a certain shape and size of each constituency as well as the adequate number of seats electable in it. Equal elections should be held [in constituencies created] through the application of a uniform standard of representation [...]’. The basic sense of the substantive equality of elections is interpreted in a like manner by other scholars, e.g.: Garlicki, supra n. 2, p. 158; Kręcisz, supra n. 11, p. 217; A. Kulig, ‘Zasady powoływania organów przedstawicielskich’ [The principles of electing representative bodies], in P. Sarnecki (ed.), Prawo konstytucyjne RP [The Constitutional Law of the Republic of Poland] (C.H. Beck 2002) p. 176 at p. 189-190; J. Galster, ‘Prawo wyborcze do Sejmu i Senatu RP oraz status prawny posłów i senatorów’ [The electoral law for the elections to the Sejm and Senate of the Republic of Poland and the legal status of deputies and senators], in Z. Witkowski (ed.), Prawo konstytucyjne [Constitutional Law] (Dom organizatora 2009) p. 197; G. Kryszeń, ‘Prawo wyborcze do parlamentu. Status prawny posłów i senatorów’ [Electoral law for parliamentary elections], in M. Grzybowski (ed.), Prawo konstytucyjne [Constitutional Law] (Temida2 2009) p. 167 at p. 173; Grabowska and Składowski, supra n. 10, p. 16.

²⁰ An alternative, narrower – and highly controversial – interpretation of the principle of substantive equality of elections, taking into account the real impact of individual votes on the composition of the representative body, which, in this view, should be proportionate to the structure of support offered (by voting) to all the associations of candidates (political parties, local organisations, etc.) by their respective electorates – is developed by Polish constitutional law scholar Uziębło, P., Zasada równości wyborów parlamentarnych w państwach europejskich i południowoamerykańskich [ The Principle of Equality of Parliamentary Elections in European and South American Countries ] (Wolters Kluwer 2013) p. 42, 377 Google Scholar . However, even Uziębło admits that in the case of the first-past-the-post system imposed by the Election Code of 2011 on council elections in small and middle-sized cities and villages, taking into account the uniform standard of representation in the creation of constituencies, this is the only aspect of the principle which can be practically implemented (see p. 139, as well as P. Uziębło, ‘Realizacja zasady równości wyborów do organu stanowiącego miast na prawach powiatu’ [The implementation of the principle of equality of elections in elections to the legislative body of the cities with county rights], 2 Przegląd Prawa Konstytucyjnego (2012)). Due to the specific character of council elections in such communes, i.e. their use of the first-past-the-post system, the present article assumes the most basic understanding of this principle.

²¹ Składowski, supra n. 1, p. 275.

²² L. Garlicki, ‘Art. 96’, in L. Garlicki (ed.), Konstytucja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej [The Constitution of the Republic of Poland] vol. 1 (Wydawnictwo Sejmowe 1999) p. 6.

²³ Składowski, supra n. 1, p. 269.

²⁴ Art. 11, § 2 Ustawa z 8 III 1990 Ordynacja wyborcza do rad gmin [Act of 08.03.1990 – Electoral Law for Commune Councils].

²⁵ Art. 13, Art. 11, § 2, supra n. 24.

²⁶ Art. 89 § 2 and § 3 Ustawa z 16 VII 1998 Ordynacja wyborcza do rad gmin, rad powiatów i sejmików województw [Act of 16 July 1998 – Electoral Law to Councils of Communes, County Councils and Regional Councils]. It remains unclear why the legislator decided not to incorporate the acceptable deviation from the (calculated) standard of representation.

²⁷ Art. 98, Art. 89 § 2 and § 3, Art. 90 § 1 and § 2, supra n. 26.

²⁸ See the analysis below.

²⁹ Art. 136 § 1, point 1, supra n. 26. It was also applied analogously, in accordance with Art. 164 § 2 of the act, to elections to regional assemblies.

³⁰ A. Jarecka, Zasada powszechności i równości w polskim prawie wyborczym [The Principle of Universality and Equality in the Polish Electoral Law] (Uniwersytet Warszawski 2000) p. 137.

³¹ Art. 36 § 1 and 2 Ustawa z 28 IX 1991 Ordynacja wyborcza do Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej [Act of 28 June 1991 – Electoral Law for the Sejm of the Republic of Poland]; Art. 45 § 4 Ustawa z 28 V 1993 Ordynacja wyborcza do Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej [Act of 28 May 1993 – Electoral Law for the Sejm of the Republic of Poland]; see also Art. 11 § 2 Ustawa z 7 IV 1989 r. Ordynacja wyborcza do Sejmu Polskiej Rzeczpospolitej Ludowej dziesiątej kadencji, na lata 1989 – 1993 [Act of 7 April 1989 – the Electoral Law for the Elections to the Sejm of the Polish People’s Republic of the 10th parliamentary tenure, 1989-1993]: ‘The number of deputies elected in each constituency shall be determined proportionately to the number of inhabitants of the constituency concerned’.

³² Art. 137 § 1, point 1, Ustawa z 12 IV 2001 Ordynacja wyborcza do Sejmu Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej i do Senatu Rzeczpospolitej Polskie [Act of 12 April 2001 – Electoral law to the Polish Sejm and the Polish Senate]

³³ By virtue of Art. 82, points 7 and 8, of Ustawa z 20 VI 2002 o bezpośrednim wyborze wójta, burmistrza i prezydenta miasta [Act of 20 June 2002 on the Direct Election of Commune Heads, Burgomasters and City Mayors] Art. 91 of the Electoral Law of 1998 was entirely deleted, whereas the content of Art. 92 § 2 of the act was extended to incorporate the rules governing the creation of constituencies for the elections to commune councils, including the method of rounding up fractions of the number of seats electable in respective constituencies.

³⁴ Art. 369, Art. 192, Art. 287 Ustawa z 5 I 2011 Kodeks wyborczy [Act of 5 January 2011 – Election Code].

³⁵ A. Rakowska and K. Skotnicki, Zmiany w prawie wyborczym wprowadzone przez Kodeks wyborczy [Changes in the Electoral Law introduced by the Election Code], 4 Przegląd Sejmowy (2011) p. 9 at p. 10. Under the assumption of a broadly defined analogy of matters regulated by individual provisions of one legal act – due to their constitutionally established qualities, their general characteristics and their outcome, elections to the Sejm and elections to representative bodies of local self-government may certainly be considered analogous in this respect – one might, indeed, reasonably expect the same or, at least, a similar sense of the same concepts used in each of the corresponding regulations concerning these matters.

³⁶ Art. 419, supra n. 34. By virtue of Art. 5, point 109, of the Act of 11 January 2018, containing a number of amendments to the Election Code, from 1 January 2019 this prerogative is transferred to the relevant Electoral Commissioners (public officials appointed by the National Electoral Commission to oversee the election process in particular districts), whose role is thus enhanced; so far they have only been able to intervene if a council of a commune failed to create constituencies/adjust existing constituencies according to the provisions of the Election Code. See Ustawa z dna 11 stycznia 2018 o zmianie niektórych ustaw w celu zwiększenia udziału obywateli w procesie wybierania, funkcjonowania i kontrolowania niektórych organów publicznych [Act of 11 January 2018 on the amendment of certain laws in order to increase the participation of citizens in the process of election, functioning and supervision of certain public bodies]. However, with the obligation to re-establish the division of all communes into constituencies, imposed on the commune councils in Art. 12 of the Act of 11 January 2018 (they are obliged to do so within 60 days of coming into force of the act), the new prerogative of Electoral Commissioners will only be exercised following some serious demographic transformations affecting particular communes (or other rare occurrences, such as the formation of new communes, or the division/merger of existing communes).

³⁷ Art. 419 § 2, point 1, supra n. 34.

³⁸ Art. 417 § 2, Art. 417 § 4, Art. 416, § 5, Art. 443, Art. 444, supra n. 34.

³⁹ Art. 202 § 1, point 1, supra n. 34: ‘a fraction of the number of mandates of deputies elected in constituencies equal to or greater than 1/2, which arise from the application of a uniform standard of representation, shall be rounded up to the nearest integer’; Art. 419 § 2, point 1, supra n. 34: ‘a fraction of the number of mandates elected in constituencies equal to or greater than 1/2, which arise from the application of a uniform standard of representation, shall be rounded up to the nearest integer’.

⁴⁰ Art. 201 § 2, supra n. 34: ‘At least seven members must be elected in each constituency’; Art. 418 § 1, supra n. 34, as amended by Art. 5, point 108 of the Act of 11 January 2018: ‘1 councillor must be elected in each constituency created for the elections to the council of a commune with a population equal to or smaller than 20,000.’ The original provision of the Election code, passed in 2011, reads as follows: ‘1 councillor must be elected in each constituency created for the elections to the council of a commune which is not a city with country rights’.

⁴¹ Art. 136 § 2 of the Electoral Law to the Sejm and the Senate of the Republic of Poland of 2001.

⁴² In the Electoral Law for Commune Councils of 1990, this rule was applicable in all communes with a population equal to or smaller than 40,000. The original wording of Art. 418 § 1 of the Act of 5 January 2011 – Election code required the creation of single-seat constituencies in all communes which were not cities with county rights, i.e. in 2,412 of the 2,478 communes in Poland. The latest amendment of the Election Code, contained in the Act of 11 January 2018, narrowed the scope of application of the first-past-the-post system to communes with a population equal to or smaller than 20,000, and thus only slightly reduced the number of communes with mandatory single-seat constituencies (to 2,136).

⁴³ Art. 202 § 1, point 1, Art. 419 § 2, point 1, supra n. 34.

⁴⁴ In other words, the largest permissible number of inhabitants attributable to one mandate in elections to a given representative body should be divided by the smallest permissible number of inhabitants attributable to one mandate in these elections.

⁴⁵ In interpreting Art. 419 § 2 of the Election Code, the National Electoral Commission put forward the following explanation: ‘The division [of a commune] into constituencies, and in cities with county rights also the specification of the number of councilors elected in each constituency, is effected by means of the uniform standard of representation, which is calculated by dividing the total number of the inhabitants of the commune by the number of councilors elected to its council. Subsequently, the number of inhabitants of a constituency is divided by the uniform standard of representation, with the rounding up of the number of seats to the nearest integer if the remaining fraction of the number of seats electable in the constituency is equal to or greater than ½ and discarding the fraction if it is smaller than ½. This principle must be strictly observed’: Uchwała Państwowej Komisji wyborczej z dnia 7 maja 2012r [Resolution of the National Electoral Commission of 7 May 2012] clause 10 of the Annex.

⁴⁶ Clauses 11, 12 and 13 of the Annex to Resolution of the National Electoral Commission of 7 May 2012, supra n. 45.

⁴⁷ Orzeczenie PKW z 26 XI 2012 [Decision of the National Electoral Commission of 26 November 2012] ZPOW - 730 -62/12.

⁴⁸ Art. 418 § 1, supra n. 34.

⁴⁹ Art. 90 § 1, supra n. 26.

⁵⁰ Banaszak, B. and Preisner, A., Wprowadzenie do prawa konstytucyjnego [Introduction to Constitutional Law] (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego 1992) p. 163 Google Scholar .

⁵¹ A blatant example of such arrangements is the division into single-seat constituencies of the city of Sulejówek (a small municipality in the vicinity of Poland’s capital city of Warsaw), effected by the resolution of the city council of 25 October 2012. With the city’s uniform standard of representation of 1258, the resolution established a number of single-mandate constituencies displaying significant deviations from the uniform standard of representation – strengthening or weakening the voting power of their residents. The sum of the number of inhabitants of two of them (adjacent to each other), i.e. Constituency No. 4 with 820 inhabitants and constituency No. 5 with 897 inhabitants equalled 1,747 and was, therefore, smaller than the number of inhabitants of Constituency No. 13 with 1,754 inhabitants, occupying an area approximately five times larger than the area of Constituency No. 4 (figures obtained from the database of the National Electoral Commission at the end of the third quarter of 2012). The area of the city of Sulejówek has never been divided into any auxiliary units: Uchwała nr. XXXII/249/2012 Rady Miasta Sulejówek z dnia 25 października 2012r [Resolution of the city council of Sulejówek of 25 October 2012 XXXII/249/2012] <www.bip.sulejowek.pl/plik,1107,nr-xxxii-249-2012-w-sprawie-podzialu-miasta-sulejowek-na-okregi-wyborcze-do-rady-miasta-sulejowek.pdf>, visited 22 October 2018.

⁵² The necessity of taking this into account when creating constituencies from formally established auxiliary units of a commune is expressed in Art. 417 § 2 and Art. 4 of the Election Code.

⁵³ The hypothetical case analysed below would have been perfectly legitimate under the provisions of the Election Code immediately after its enforcement in 2011, when all commune councils were obliged to re-establish the division of their communes into constituencies – even if the re-establishment was only to confirm the earlier contours of these constituencies. See Art. 13 § 2 Ustawa z dnia 5 stycznia 2011 – Przepisy wprowadzające kodeks wyborczy [Act of 5 January 2011 – Provisions enforcing the Election code], as well as Clause 5 of the Annex to Resolution of the National Electoral Commission of 7 May 2012, supra n. 45.

⁵⁴ Pismo Państwowej Komisji Wyborczej do komisarzy wyborczych z dnia 12 marca 2018 r [Instruction of the National Electoral Commission of 12 March 2018 addressed to Electoral Commissioners], ZPOW-521-8/18.

⁵⁵ Art. 13 § 2 Act of 5 January 2011, supra n. 53.

⁵⁶ Art. 12 § 1 Act of 11 January 2018, supra n. 36. Apparently, the provision in question gave commune councils a unique chance to re-adjust the divisions of the communes into constituencies in line with the generally accepted interpretation of the principle of equality of elections.

⁵⁷ Art. 419 § 1 of the Election Code, supra n. 34.

⁵⁸ Art. 421 § 2 of the Election Code, supra n. 29.

⁵⁹ In line with Art. 5, point 109, of the Act of 11 January 2018, Electoral Commissioners will assume from 1 January 2019 the councils’ prerogative of creating (modifying) constituencies for local elections.

⁶⁰ See e.g. Uchwała Państwowej Komisji Wyborczej z dnia 11 czerwca 2018 r. w sprawie odwołania od postanowienia Komisarza wyborczego w Siedlcach II [Resolution of the National Electoral Commission of 11 June 2018 regarding the appeal against the decision of the Electoral Commissioner in Siedlce II], <pkw.gov.pl/785_Uchwaly_w_sprawie_odwolan_od_postanowien_Komisarzy_Wyborczych/5/25653_Uchwala_Panstwowej_Komisji_Wyborczej_z_dnia_11_czerwca_2018_r_w_sprawie_odwolania_od_postanowienia_Komisarza_Wyborczego_w_Siedlcach_II>, visited 22 October 2018. One should note in this context that such ‘cosmetic’ improvements of the proportionality of constituencies, intended primarily to maximally delay the intervention of the Electoral Commissioner, were considered legitimate – though not regarded as the only possible – solutions to breaches of Art. 419 § 2 of the Election Code in the past, e.g. immediately after the enforcement of the Election Code in 2011. This is perfectly evidenced by the argument in favour of a small adjustment of the boundaries between constituencies presented as part of the justification of the abovementioned resolution of the City Council of Sulejówek: ‘This change [a slight decrease in the area of the city’s largest constituency, AC] is of great importance for stability of the [electoral] division [of the city into single-seat constituencies], because if in the near future the fraction of [the uniform standard of representation corresponding to] the mandate electable in the largest constituency 13 exceeded 1.49 – the change would be ordered urgently before the election by the Electoral Commissioner in Siedlce’: supra n. 51.

⁶¹ Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters. Guidelines and Explanatory Report, Venice, 18-19 October, 2002 [emphasis added]. This interpretation of the substantive equality of elections was most recently restated by the Venice Commission in its Report on Constituency Delineation and Seat Allocation, supra n. 18.

⁶² The obligation to enforce precepts contained in international conventions ratified by Poland is expressly articulated in Art. 9 of the Polish Constitution. Art. 9 The Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 2^nd April 1997, supra n. 5.

⁶³ Zdanie odrębne Sędziego TK Marka Safjana od wyroku z dnia 3 listopada 2006 r., sygn. akt K 31/06 [Dissenting opinion of Justice Marek Safjan accompanying the Ruling of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of 3 November 2006, Ref. K 31/06] [author’s translation].

⁶⁴ M. Masternak-Kubiak, Glosa do wyroku Trybunału Konstytucyjnego z dnia 3 listopada 2006 r. (Sygn. akt K 31/06) [Commentary on the Ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal of 3 November 2006. (Ref. K 31/06)] 2 Przegląd Sejmowy (2007) p. 171 at p. 174, 175.

⁶⁵ F. Rymarz, ‘O wyższy poziom legislacji i stabilizację polskiego prawa wyborczego’ [For a Higher Level of Legislation and the Stability of Polish Electoral Law], in Rymarz, supra n. 3, p. 145 at p. 152.

⁶⁶ See supra n. 18.

⁶⁷ Składowski, supra n. 1, p. 271.

⁶⁸ The figure is based on the data obtained by the author of the present paper from the National Electoral Commission in 2014. According to the same data, in 16% of the communes with a population equal to or smaller than 20,000, the ratio of the number of inhabitants of the three largest constituencies to the number of inhabitants of the three smallest constituencies ranges from 2 to 2.6, whereas in 19% of such communes the corresponding ratio between the seven largest and the seven smallest constituencies falls between 1.5 and 1.9. Due to the electoral-map’s-stability-centred interpretations of the Polish electoral law enforced by the National Electoral Commission (see supra n. 60) the situation is bound to remain unchanged during the forthcoming local elections to be held in Poland in October 2018.

⁶⁹ Act of 11 January 2018, supra n. 36.