Rzepiński Wojciech, Ascription of content to provisions of the law by judicial practice. Theoretical analysis of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s judgments

The Polish Constitutional Tribunal has withdrawn from conducting its own interpretation of the subject of constitutional review several times in its adjudications. Even though this practice is rather incidental, in the cases considered, the Tribunal’s own interpretation was replaced by the adoption of the result of another court’s interpretation. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal accepted another court’s interpretation as that, which determines the content of the provisions of the law under review. My objective is to provide a theoretical account of the conduct of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal.

First, the distinction between pragmatic interpretation and non-pragmatic interpretation, widely known in Polish legal theory, is important for enabling a better understanding. The usefulness of the distinction is demonstrated in sections 2 and 3 of the article.

Second, the paper recapitulates on various judgments in which the Polish Constitutional Tribunal notes that the practice of...