President/Executive Department Commons^™

Statutory Anti-Constitutionalism, Maciej Bernatt, Michał Ziółkowski

Washington International Law Journal

The article aims at demonstrating that unconstitutional results, marking an illiberal transformation may be achieved by means of a series of statutory amendments outside the constitutional amendment procedure, when the guardian of the constitution is deactivated. In other words, the evasion of the constitution becomes a means of illiberal change of the legal system. This process is referred to as “statutory anti-constitutionalism.” The article offers a detailed analysis of the legal methods which are used to evade the constitution. These include excessive use of transitional and intertemporal provisions in the statutes, shortening vacatio legis, shortening of constitutionally-determined terms of …