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The Polish Ombudsman and the Transition to Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2008

Howard Elcock
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Extract

A great deal has happened since the first Polish Commissioner for Citizens' Rights Protection discussed the role of her office in this journal in January 1990.1 At that time, the communist regime had given place to Eastern Europe's first non-communist government, led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, after the elections of June 1989. Following the Polish United Workers' Party's defeat then, communism collapsed throughout Eastern Europe. Poland itself has since moved somewhat shakily towards a pluralist democratic regime, with a directly elected president and two chambers of Parliament in which multi-party systems now operate. However, despite some suggestions that the institutions created during the communist period should be swept away after communism fell, several of them have made the transition to the new liberal-democratic State. These institutions include three that were created by the Jaruszelski regime during the 1980s in order to try to win back its fading popular legitimacy: the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC), the Constitutional Tribunal (CT) and the Commissioner for Citizens' Rights Protection (CCRP), or Ombudsman. Since the fall of communism, the need for administrative adjudication has both changed and become greater, especially because there has not yet been any agreement on a new Polish constitution. The number of complaints sent to the CCRP's office rose from 22,764 in 1990 to 29,273 in 1993. This short article gives an account of the principal developments in the Commissioner's role since 1990. Professor Letowska was replaced in the office in 1991 by Professor Tadeusz Zielinski, from the University of Krakow, and the change in incumbent has produced significant changes in practice as well as continuity.

Type
Shorter Articles, Comments and Notes
Information
International & Comparative Law Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , July 1996 , pp. 684 - 690
Copyright
Copyright © British Institute of International and Comparative Law 1996

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References

1. Ewa Letowska, “The Polish Ombudsman (The Commissioner for the Protection of Civil Rights)” (1990) 39 I.C.L.Q. 206–217.

2. F. Stacey. The British Ombudsman (1971) and Ombudsmen Compared (1978). See also Roy Gregory and P. Hutchesson. The Parliamentary Ombudsman: A Study in the Control of Administrative Action (1975) and Mary Seneviratne. Ombudsmen in the Public Sector (1994). On the issue of maladministration see G. Marshall. “Maladministration” [1975] Public Law 32–44.

3. CCRP Annual Report 1990. p. 10.Google Scholar

4. CCRP Annual Report 1992. p.22.Google Scholar

5. CCRP Annual Report 1990. p.10.Google Scholar

6. See H. J. Elcock. “Making Bricks without Straw? The Polish Ombudsman and the Transition to Democracy” (1992) 20 Int.J. Sociology of L. 173–182. See also M. Brzezinski and L. Garlicki. “Judicial Review in Post-Communist Poland: The emergence of a Recht-staat?” (1995) 31 Stan J.Int.L. 13–59. The education and abortion issues are discussed on pp.33–34 and 50–53.Google Scholar

7. CCRP Annual Report 1992. p.24.Google Scholar

8. CCRP Annual Report 1993. p.10.Google Scholar

9. Zielinski, T.. “When the Law Sleeps, the Phantoms Arise”. Materials (1994), pp.29–32. at p.30.Google Scholar

10. CCRP Annual Report 1993. p. 115.Google Scholar

11. CCRP. Materials (1994). pp.14–15.Google Scholar

12. See Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski. Left Turn in Poland: A Sociological Analysis. Institute of Political Studies. Polish Academy of Sciences.

13. CCRP. Materials (1994), p.16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. CCRP Annual Report 1993, p.6.Google Scholar

15. Interview: Wyrzykowski: CCRP Annual Report 1992. p.35.Google Scholar

16. CCRP Annual Report 1991. p.5.Google Scholar

17. Interview: Wyrzykowski: see H. J. Elcock. “Working for Socialist Legality: The Polish Commissioner for Citizens' Rights Protection” (1990) 5 Public Policy and Admin. 37–47.

18. CCRP Annual Report 1993.

19. CCRP Annual Report 1992. pp.32–35: interview: Zielinski.Google Scholar

20. CCRP Annual Reports 1992. pp.27 and 29 and 1993, p.111.Google Scholar

21. CCRP Annual Report 1990. p.5: interview: Wyrzykowski.Google Scholar

22. Letowska, E.. “The Ombudsman in Countries of Eastern and Central Europe” Materials (1994). pp.36–48. at p.44.Google Scholar

23. CCRP Annual Report 1990, p.11.Google Scholar

24. CCRP Annual Report 1991. p.15.Google Scholar

25. CCRP Annual Report 1993. pp.101–102.Google Scholar

26. Zielinski. op. cit. supra n.9. at p.29.Google Scholar

27. CCRP Annual Report 1990. pp.4, 5–6.Google Scholar

28. CCRP Annual Report 1993, p.20.Google Scholar

29. Idem, p.102.

30. Zielinski, T., “Hunger for Security: 2”, Materials (1994). pp.18–22. at p.18.Google Scholar

31. ibid.

32. Brzezinski and Garlicki. op. cit. supra n.6. at pp.53 et seq.; interview: Winczorek.Google Scholar

33. Interview: Winczorek.

34. CCRP Annual Report 1993, p. 113. Zielinski, T.. “Co-operation between Ombudsmen, Council of Europe and other International Organisations”. Materials (1994), p.9.Google Scholar

35. See Brzezinski and Garlicki. op. cit. supra n.6, at p.34.Google Scholar

36. Idem, p.34, n.112.

37. Leszek Garlicki. “Constitutional and Administrative Courts as Custodians of the State Constitutions: The Experience of East European Countries” (1987) 61 Tulane L.Rev. 1285 and Brzezinski and Garlicki, op. cit. supra n.6.

38. Seneviratne, op. cit. supra n.2.