Amendment of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland “in the time of the plague”

Abstract

A deputy’s bill to amend the Constitution of the Republic of Poland was submitted to the Sejm, assuming the extension of the term of office of the President of the Republic of Poland to 7 years and departure from the principle of re-election (Sejm print No. 337).
The basic doubts were raised by the fact that the draft concerned the current term of office and deprived the incumbent President of the possibility of applying for re-election in the future. In addition, the bill was submitted to the Sejm during the state of epidemic.
Therefore, questions arose as to whether during the current state of the epidemic it is permissible to proceed with the amendment of the Constitution and whether it is possible to introduce changes as to the length of the president’s term of office during the ongoing electoral process and in relation to the current term of office of the head of state.
Any amendments to the Constitution should be preceded by an in-depth legal analysis related to the negative assessment of the functioning of the constitutional rules, public debate, extensive expert consultations and justified from the point of view of the legal system. Such an analysis has not been made. In addition, an amendment to the Constitution is not allowed during a state of emergency.