“The situation is clear when it comes to the legal force of this decision. It comes into effect on the day it is issued. Therefore, publication is not a condition for its entry into force. The lack of publication has no bearing on the validity of convening the session of the National Assembly,” said constitutional law expert Professor Ryszard Piotrowski in an interview with Niezalezna.pl. The lawyer was commenting on the government’s failure to publish the decision of Sejm Marshal Szymon Hołownia regarding the convening of the National Assembly.
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So far, the government has not published in the Monitor Polski the decision issued by Sejm Marshal Szymon Hołownia on July 7th to convene the National Assembly, during which Karol Nawrocki is to take his oath of office. Although the decision was made ten days ago, its publication is still delayed — longer than ever before in similar cases.
Until now, all such decisions by Sejm Marshals concerning the convening of the National Assembly following presidential elections were published in the Monitor Polski — usually the day after they were signed, or at most within a few days. These standards were followed both under Elżbieta Witek and Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska.
The procedure for such cases is governed by the Act of July 20, 2000, on the promulgation of normative acts and certain other legal acts. According to this law, the publication of a normative act in the official journal is mandatory (Article 2), and the announcement should be made “without delay” (Article 3).
Prof. Piotrowski: Publication is not a prerequisite for the decision to take effect
We asked Professor Ryszard Piotrowski, a constitutional law expert, to comment on the government’s actions.
“The situation is clear when it comes to the legal force of this decision. It comes into effect on the day it is made. Therefore, publication is not a condition for it to come into force. The lack of publication does not affect the validity of convening the National Assembly. The convening of the session is mandated by the Constitution and the Electoral Code. The decision only specifies the time of commencement. According to the decision, it will take place at 10 a.m. However, the fact that it is scheduled for August 6th results from the Electoral Code and the Constitution,” he said.
The professor emphasized that “the lack of publication does not prevent the Assembly from taking place.” We asked whether, in this case, the law on the publication of normative acts is being violated.
“No. That law specifies what is to be published in the Monitor Polski. It does not explicitly state that this type of decision must be published. Indeed, the Prime Minister may order the publication of other legal acts in the Monitor Polski, such as the one in question. But he is not obligated to do so,” Prof. Piotrowski stressed.
We followed up by asking about the government’s intentions and whether the non-publication breaks with the tradition of publishing the Sejm Marshal’s decision.
“There may be political motives I am unaware of. However, as I said, publication in this situation is of technical, organizational, and procedural significance. It is not of constitutive significance. It has symbolic value. But here I would be cautious, because it may turn out that the publication will happen any moment. I believe the delay might even be intended to draw attention to the fact that it hasn’t happened yet,” he said.