The Period Preceding the Drafting of the Constitution

Although after World War II, the issue of the horizontal effect of constitutional rights was widely discussed across many European countries, particularly in Germany and Switzerland, it was basically not taken up at all in the Polish legal literature. The reason for the lack of interest in this subject in Poland was above all the politicization of the then binding Constitution of 1952 as well as disrespect for the rights of the individual that was laid down in that Constitution and the marginalization of those rights by communist authorities. That Constitution was denied a normative quality through the recognition that it was not apt for direct application. Its norms were believed to be too general, and to always require concretization by statutes. The Constitution itself did not confer any specific protective tools to individuals in the event of the violation of the rights or freedoms enshrined in it. The approach of the jurisprudence during that period was shaped by a resolution of the Supreme Court of 12 February 1955, Ref. No. I CO 4/55, which stated: ‘Constitutional norms construe basic legal principles, constituting the axis of the supra structure of laws, which as a rule is unsuitable for direct practical application in everyday life of the society, unless expounded in statutes and other normative acts.’ Accordingly, since the applicability of the Constitution was challenged even in vertical relations (between the individual and the state), it was completely pointless to consider its application in horizontal relations (between individuals).

The absence of discussion regarding the horizontal effect of constitutional rights was also a consequence of the perception of the Constitution of 1952 by the then contemporary jurisprudence as a normative act belonging to ‘state law’ and regulating relations between the individual and the state. It should be noted that, in post-war socialist Poland, the distinction between the sphere of public law and private law was not as clearly drawn as in other 14 countries in Europe at that time. Moreover, the public law dominated and marginalized the private law.