:: wikimiki.org ::

Constitution Of May 3

Constitution of May 3

). King Stanisław August (left, in regal ermine-trimmed cloak), enters St. John's Cathedral, where Sejm deputies will swear to uphold the new Constitution; in background, Warsaw's Royal Castle, where the Constitution has just been adopted.]] The Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791 (Polish: Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja) is claimed to be Europe's first modern codified national constitution. It was instituted by the Government Act (Polish: Ustawa rządowa) adopted on that date by the Sejm (parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the federative Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its Golden Liberty. The Constitution introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility (szlachta) and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. The Constitution abolished pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the liberum veto, which at one time had placed the sejm at the mercy of any deputy who might choose, or be bribed by an interest or foreign power, to undo all the legislation that had been passed by that sejm. The May 3rd Constitution sought to supplant the existing anarchy fostered by some of the country's reactionary magnates, with a more egalitarian and democratic constitutional monarchy. The adoption of the May 3rd Constitution provoked the active hostility of the Polish Commonwealth's neighbors. In the War in Defense of the Constitution, Poland was betrayed by its Prussian ally Frederick William II and defeated by the Imperial Russia of Catherine the Great, allied with the Targowica Confederation, a cabal of Polish magnates who opposed reforms that might weaken their influence. Despite the defeat, and the subsequent Second Partition of Poland, the May 3rd Constitution influenced later democratic movements in the world. It remained, after the demise of the Polish Republic in 1795, over the next 123 years of Polish partitions, a beacon in the struggle to restore Polish sovereignty. In the words of two of its co-authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, it was "the last will and testament of the expiring Fatherland."

History

Background

The May 3rd Constitution was a response to the increasingly perilous situation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, only a century and a half earlier a major European power and indeed the largest state on the continent. Already two centuries before the May 3rd Constitution, King Zygmunt III's court preacher, the Jesuit Piotr Skarga, had famously condemned the individual and collective weaknesses of the Commonwealth's citizens. Likewise, in the same period, writers and philosophers such as Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski and Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki, and Jan Zamoyski's egzekucja praw (Execution-of-the-Laws) reform movement, had advocated reforms. By the early 17th century, the magnates of Poland and Lithuania were in near-total control of the Commonwealth — or rather, they managed to ensure that no reforms be carried out that might weaken their privileged status. They looked after their own interests while neglecting the commonweal. They spent lavishly on banquets, drinking-bouts and other assorted amusements, while the peasants languished in abysmal conditions and the city dwellers were hemmed in by an array of anti-municipal legislation and fared much worse than their thriving Western contemporaries. Many historians hold that a major cause of the Commonwealth's downfall was the peculiar institution of the liberum veto ("free veto"), which since 1652 had in principle permitted any Sejm deputy to nullify all the legislation that had been adopted by that Sejm. Thus deputies bribed by magnates or foreign powers, or simply benighted and content to believe that they were living in some kind of "Golden Age," for over a century paralyzed the Commonwealth's government. The threat of the liberum veto could, however, be overridden by the establishment of a "confederated sejm," which operated immune from the liberum veto. The Four-Year, or "Great," Sejm of 1788–1792, which would adopt the Constitution of May 3, 1791, was such a confederated sejm; and it was due only to that fact that it was able to put through so radical a piece of legislation. By the reign (1764–1795) of Poland's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, the Age of Enlightenment had begun to take root in Poland. The King proceeded with cautious reforms. Fiscal and military "commissions" (ministries) were established. A national customs tariff was instituted. Thoroughgoing constitutional reforms were discussed. However, the idea of reforms in the Commonwealth was viewed with growing suspicion by neighboring countries, which were content with the Commonwealth's impotence and abhorred the thought of a powerful — and more democratic — country hard by their borders. Accordingly Empress Catherine the Great of Russia and King Frederick the Great of Prussia provoked a conflict between Sejm conservatives and the King over civil rights for religious minorities. Catherine and Frederick declared their support for the Polish nobility (szlachta) and their "liberties," and by October 1767 Russian troops had assembled outside the Polish capital, Warsaw. The King and his adherents, in face of superior Russian military force, were left with little choice but to bow to Russian demands and accept the five "eternal and invariable" principles which Catherine vowed to "protect in the name of Poland's liberties": the free election of kings; the right of liberum veto; the right to renounce allegiance to, and raise rebellion against, the king (rokosz); and the szlachta's exclusive right to hold office and land, and the landowner's power of life and death over his peasants. Not everyone in the Commonwealth agreed with King Stanisław August's decision. On February 29, 1768, several magnates, including Kazimierz Pułaski, vowing to oppose Russian intervention, declared Stanisław August a "lackey of Russia and Catherine" and formed a confederation at the town of Bar. The Bar Confederation opened a civil war with the goal of overthrowing the King and fought on until 1772, when overwhelmed by Russian intervention. 1772.)]] The Bar Confederation's defeat set the scene for the next act in the unfolding drama. On August 5, 1772, at St. Petersburg, Russia, the three neighboring powers, Russia, Prussia and Austria, signed the First Partition treaty. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was to be divested of over 30,000 square miles of territory, leaving her 74,000 square miles. This was justified on grounds of anarchy in the Commonwealth and the latter's refusal to cooperate with its neighbors' efforts to restore order. The three powers demanded that the Sejm ratify this first partition, otherwise threatening further partitions. King Stanisław August yielded to duress and on April 19, 1773, called the Sejm into session. Only 102 deputies attended; the rest, aware of the King's decision, refused. Despite protests, notably by the deputy Tadeusz Rejtan, the First Partition of Poland was ratified. The first of the three successive 18th-century partitions of Commonwealth territory by Russia, Prussia and Austria that would eventually blot Poland from the map of Europe, had made it clear to progressive minds that the Commonwealth must either reform or perish. Even before the First Partition, a Sejm deputy had been sent to ask the French philosophes Gabriel Bonnet de Mably and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to draw up tentative constitutions for a new Poland. Mably had submitted his recommendations in 1770–1771; Rousseau had finished his (Considerations on the Government of Poland) in 1772, when the First Partition was already underway. Supported by King Stanisław August, a new wave of reforms were introduced. The most important included the establishment (1773) of a Commission of National Education — the first ministry of education in the world. New schools were opened in the cities and in the countryside, uniform textbooks were printed, teachers were educated, poor students were provided scholarships. The Commonwealth's military was modernized; a standing army was formed. Economic and commercial reforms, previously shunned as unimportant by the szlachta, were introduced, and the development of industries was encouraged. The peasants were given some rights. A new Police ministry fought corruption. Everything from the road system to prisons was reformed. A new executive body was created, the Permanent Council (Polish: Rada Nieustająca), comprising five ministries. Permanent Council of 1788–1792 adopts the May 3rd Constitution at Warsaw's Royal Castle (rebuilt in the 1970s after its deliberate destruction by the Germans in World War II).]] In 1776 the Sejm commissioned Chancellor Andrzej Zamoyski to draft a new legal code, the Zamoyski Code. By 1780, under Zamoyski's direction, a code (Zbiór praw sądowych) had been produced. It would have strengthened royal power, made all officials answerable to the Sejm, placed the clergy and their finances under state supervision, and deprived landless szlachta of many of their legal immunities. Zamoyski's progressive legal code, containing elements of constitutional reform, failed to be adopted by the Sejm.

Drafting and Adoption

Events in the world now played into the reformers' hands. Poland's neigbors were too occupied with wars — especially with the Ottoman Empire — and with their own internal troubles to intervene forcibly in Poland. A major opportunity for reform seemed to present itself during the "Great" or "Four-Year Sejm" of 1788–1792, which opened on October 6, 1788, and from 1790 — in the words of the May 3rd Constitution's preamble — met "in dual number," the newly elected Sejm deputies having joined the earlier-established confederated sejm. While a new alliance between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Prussia seemed to provide security against Russian intervention, King Stanisław August drew closer to leaders of the reform-minded Patriotic Party. A new Constitution was drafted by the King, with contributions from Stanisław Małachowski, Ignacy Potocki, Hugo Kołłątaj, Stanisław Staszic, the King's Italian secretary Scipione Piattoli, and others. The advocates of the Constitution, under threat of violence from the Sejm's Muscovite Party (also known as the "Hetmans"), and with many contrary-minded deputies still away on Easter recess, managed to set debate on the Government Act forward by two days from the original May 5. The ensuing debate and adoption of the Government Act took place in a quasi-coup d'etat: many pro-reform deputies arrived early and in secret, and the royal guards were positioned about the Royal Castle where the Sejm was gathered, to prevent Muscovite adherents from disrupting the proceedings. The Constitution ("Government Act") bill was read out and passed overwhelmingly, to the enthusiasm of the crowds gathered outside.

The fall

The May 3rd, 1791, Constitution remained in effect for only a year before being overthrown, by Russian armies allied with the Targowica Confederation, in the War in Defense of the Constitution. War between Turkey and Russia having by now ended, Empress Catherine was furious over the adoption of the May 3rd Constitution. Russia had viewed Poland as a de facto protectorate. The contacts of Polish reformers with the Revolutionary French National Assembly were seen by Poland's neighbors as evidence of a revolutionary conspiracy and a threat to the absolute monarchies. The Prussian statesman Ewald von Hertzberg expressed the fears of European conservatives: "[The Poles] have given the coup de grâce to the Prussian monarchy by voting a constitution." Ewald von Hertzberg, 1794).]] A number of magnates who had opposed the Constitution from the start, such as Feliks Potocki and Ksawery Branicki, asked Tsarina Catherine to intervene and restore their privileges abolished under the Constitution. With her backing they formed the Targowica Confederation, and in their proclamation denounced the Constitution for spreading the "contagion of democratic ideas." They asserted that "The intentions of Her Highness the Empress of Russia [Catherine the Great], ally of the Polish Commonwealth, in introducing her army, are and have been none other than to restore to the Commonwealth and to Poles freedom, and in particular to all the country's citizens, security and happiness." On May 18, 1792, over 20,000 Confederates crossed the border into Poland, together with 97,000 veteran Russian troops. The Polish King and the reformers could field only a 37,000-man army, many of them untested recruits. The Polish Army, under the King's nephew Józef Poniatowski and Tadeusz Kościuszko, did defeat the Russians on several occasions, but the King himself dealt a deathblow to the Polish cause: when in July 1792 Warsaw was threatened with siege by the Russians, the King came to believe that victory was impossible against the Russian numerical superiority, and that surrender was the only alternative to total defeat and a massacre of the reformers. On July 24, 1792, King Stanisław August abandoned the reformist cause and joined the Targowica Confederation. The Polish Army disintegrated. Many reform leaders, believing their cause lost, went into self-exile. The King had not saved the Commonwealth, however. To the surprise of the Targowica Confederates, there ensued the Second Partition of Poland. Russia took 250,000 square kilometers, and Prussia took 58,000. The Commonwealth now comprised no more than 212,000 square kilometers. What was left of the Commonwealth was merely a small buffer state with a puppet king and a Russian army. For a year and a half Polish patriots bided their time, while planning an insurrection. On March 24, 1794, in Kraków, Tadeusz Kościuszko declared what has come to be known as the Kościuszko Uprising. On May 7 he issued the "Połaniec Proclamation" (Uniwersał Połaniecki), granting freedom to the peasants and ownership of land to all who fought in the insurrection. After some initial victories — the Battle of Racławice (April 4) and the capture of Warsaw (April 18) and Wilno (April 22) — the Uprising was dealt a crippling blow: the forces of Russia, Austria and Prussia joined in a military intervention. Historians consider the Uprising's defeat to have been a foregone conclusion in face of the gigantic numerical superiority of the three invading powers. The defeat of Kościuszko's forces led to the third and final partition of the Commonwealth in 1795.

Legacy

Nevertheless, memory of the world's second modern codified national constitution — recognized by political scientists as a very progressive document for its time — for generations helped keep alive Polish aspirations for an independent and just society, and continues to inform the efforts of its authors' descendants. In Poland it is viewed as the culmination of all that was good and enlightened in Polish history and culture. The May 3rd anniversary of its adoption has been observed as Poland's most important civic, May 3rd holiday, since Poland regained independence in 1918. Prior to the May 3rd Constitution, in Poland the term "constitution" (Polish: konstytucja) had denoted all the legislation, of whatever character, that had been passed at a Sejm. Only with the adoption of the May 3rd Constitution did konstytucja assume its modern sense of a fundamental document of governance. The very concept of a codified national constitution was revolutionary in the history of political systems. The first such constitution was the Constitution of the United States of America, written in 1787, which began to function in 1789. The second was the Constitution adopted by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on May 3, 1791. These two charters of government form an important milestone in the history of democracy. Poland and the United States, though distant geographically, showed some notable similarities in their approaches to the design of political systems. By contrast to the great absolute monarchies, both countries were remarkably democratic. The kings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were elected, and the Commonwealth's parliament (the Sejm) possessed extensive legislative authority. Under the May 3rd Constitution, Poland afforded political privileges to its townspeople and to its nobility (the szlachta), which formed some ten percent of the country's population. This percentage closely approximated the extent of political access in contemporary America, where effective suffrage was limited to male property owners. The defeat of Poland's liberals was but a temporary setback to the cause of democracy. The destruction of the Polish state only slowed the expansion of democracy, by then already established in North America. Democratic movements soon began undermining the absolute monarchies of Europe. The May 3rd Constitution was translated, in abridged form, into French, German and English. French revolutionaries toasted King Stanisław August and the Constitution — not only for their progressive character, but because the War in Defense of the Constitution and the Kościuszko Uprising tied up appreciable Russian and Prussian forces that could not therefore be used against Revolutionary France. Thomas Paine regarded the May 3rd Constitution as a great breakthrough. Edmund Burke described it as "the noblest benefit received by any nation at any time…. Stanislas II has earned a place among the greatest kings and statesmen in history." In the end, the conservatives managed to delay the ascent of democracy in Europe only for a century; after the First World War most of the European monarchies were replaced by democratic states, including the reborn, Second Polish Republic.

Features

King Stanisław August described the May 3rd Constitution, according to a contemporary account, as "founded principally on those of England and the United States of America, but avoiding the faults and errors of both, and adapt[ed] as much as possible to the local and particular circumstances of the country." Indeed, the Polish and American national constitutions reflected similar Enlightenment influences, including Montesquieu's advocacy of a separation and balance of powers among the three branches of government — so that, in the words of the May 3rd Constitution (article V), "the integrity of the states, civil liberty, and social order remain always in equilibrium" — as well as Montesquieu's advocacy of a bicameral legislature. The Constitution comprised 11 articles. It introduced the principle of popular sovereignty (applied to the nobility and townspeople) and a separation of powers into legislative (a bicameral Sejm), executive ("the King in his council") and judicial branches. The Constitution advanced the democratization of the polity by limiting the excessive legal immunities and political prerogatives of landless nobility, while granting to the townspeople — in the earlier Our Free Royal Cities in the States of the Commonwealth Act (Polish: Miasta Nasze Królewskie wolne w państwach Rzeczypospolitej) of April 18, 1791, stipulated in Article III to be integral to the Constitution — personal security, the right to acquire landed property, eligibility for military officers' commissions, public offices, and membership in the nobility (szlachta). The Government Act also placed the Commonwealth's peasantry "under the protection of the national law and government" — a first step toward the ending of serfdom and the enfranchisement of that largest and most oppressed social class. The May 3rd Constitution provided for a Sejm, "ordinarily" meeting every two years and "extraordinarily" whenever required by a national emergency. Its lower chamber — the Chamber of Deputies (Polish: Izba Poselska) — comprised 204 deputies and 24 plenipotentiaries of royal cities; its upper chamber — the Chamber of Senators (Polish: Izba Senacka) — comprised 132 senators (voivodes, castellans, government ministers and bishops). bishop Executive power was in the hands of the royal council, called the Guardianship of the Laws (Polish: Straż Praw). This council was presided over by the King and comprised 5 ministers appointed by him: a minister of police, minister of the seal (i.e. of internal affairs — the seal was a traditional attribute of the earlier Chancellor), minister of the seal of foreign affairs, minister belli (of war), and minister of treasury. The ministers were appointed by the King but responsible to the Sejm. In addition to the ministers, council members included the Roman Catholic Primate (who was also president of the Education Commission) and — without a voice — the Crown Prince, the Marshal of the Sejm, and two secretaries. This royal council was a descendant of the similar council that had functioned over the previous two centuries since King Henry's Articles (1573). Acts of the King required the countersignature of the respective minister. The stipulation that the King, "[d]oing nothing of himself, […] shall be answerable for nothing to the nation," parallels the British constitutional principle that "The King can do no wrong." (In both countries, the respective minister was responsible for the king's acts.) To enhance Commonwealth integration and security, the Constitution abolished the erstwhile union of Poland and Lithuania in favor of a unitary state and changed the government from an individually- to a dynastically-elective monarchy. The latter provision was meant to reduce the destructive, vying influences of foreign powers at each royal election. Under the terms of the May 3rd Constitution, on Stanisław August's death the throne of Poland was to pass to the house of Saxony, which had provided two of Poland's recent elective kings. The Constitution abolished several institutional sources of government weakness and national anarchy, including the liberum veto, confederations, confederated sejms (paradoxically, the Four-Year Sejm was itself a confederated sejm), and the excessive sway of sejmiks (regional sejms) stemming from the binding nature of their instructions to their Sejm deputies. The Constitution acknowledged the Roman Catholic faith as the "dominant religion," but guaranteed tolerance of, and freedom, to all religions. The Army was to be built up to 100,000 men. Standing income taxes were established (10% on the nobility, 20% on the church). Amendments to the constitution could be made every 25 years. The May 3rd Constitution recognized, as integral to itself, the act on Our Free Royal Cities in the States of the Commonwealth that had been passed on April 18, 1791 (Constitution, article III) and the act on regional sejms (Sejmiki) passed earlier on March 24, 1791 (article VI). Some authorities additionally regard as parts of the Constitution the Declaration of the Assembled Estates of May 5, 1791, confirming the Government Act adopted two days earlier, and the Mutual Declaration of the Two Peoples (i.e., of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) of October 22, 1791, affirming the unity and indivisibility of Poland and the Grand Duchy. The provisions of the Government Act were fleshed out in a number of implementing laws passed in May–June 1791 on sejms and sejm courts (two acts of May 13), the Guardianship (June 1), the national police commission (that is, ministry: June 17) and civic administration (June 24). The May 3rd Constitution remained to the last a work in progress. Its co-author Hugo Kołłątaj announced work underway on "an economic constitution…guaranteeing all rights of property [and] securing protection and honor to all manner of labor…" Yet a third basic law was touched on by Kołłątaj: a "moral constitution," most likely a Polish analog to the American Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

Notes

# Article IV (The peasants): "we accept under the protection of the law and of the national government the agricultural folk […] who constitute the most numerous populace in the nation and hence the greatest strength of the country [...]." # John Markoff describes the advent of modern codified national constitutions as one of the milestones of democracy, and states that "The first European country to follow the U.S. example was Poland in 1791." John Markoff, Waves of Democracy, 1996, ISBN 0803990197, p.121. # It bears noting that the contemporaneous United States Constitution sanctioned the continuation of slavery. Thus neither constitution enfranchised all its adult male population: the U.S. Constitution discriminated against America's slaves, the Polish Constitution — against Poland's peasants. # King Stanisław August himself had been elected in 1764 with the support of his ex-mistress, Russian Tsarina Catherine the Great — including bribes and a Russian army deployed only a few miles from the election sejm, meeting at Wola outside Warsaw.

References

- Adam Zamoyski, The Polish Way: a Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture, New York, Hippocrene Books, 1994.
- Jacek Jędruch, Constitutions, Elections and Legislatures of Poland, 1493-1993, Summit, NJ, EJJ Books, 1998, ISBN 0781806372.
- Joseph Kasparek, The Constitutions of Poland and of the United States: Kinships and Genealogy, Miami, American Institute of Polish Culture, 1980.
- Norman Davies, God's Playground, 2 vols., ISBN 0231053533 and ISBN 0231053517.
- Paweł Jasienica, Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów (The Commonwealth of the Two Peoples), ISBN 8306010930.
- John Markoff, Waves of Democracy, 1996, ISBN 0803990197
- Emanuel Rostworowski, Maj 1791 - maj 1792: rok monarchii konstytucyjnej [May 1791 - May 1792: the Year of Constitutional Monarchy], Warsaw, Zamek Królewski [Royal Castle], 1985.

External links

- [http://www.polishconstitution.org/index1.html Polishconstitution.org: site about the Polish May 3rd Constitution that contributed some texts to wikisource]
- [http://www.senat.gov.pl/k5eng/historia/noty/nota16a.htm History of Polish law until 1795]
- [http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/constitution.html The Constitution of May 3, 1791 by Hon. Carl L. Bucki]
- [http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/JJ.html Constitutions, Elections and Legislatures of Poland, 1493-1993] Category:1791 in law Category:Constitutions of Poland Poland, May

Ermine

Ermine has several different meanings.
- Stoat, or short-tailed weasel (Mustela erminea)
- The name ermine can also refer to the white fur of this animal, which is used for the bordering of judges' robes in France and the UK. UK]
- In heraldry, one of the furs used in blazoning, representing the skin of the stoat. A field of ermine is argent (white) with sable (black) spots of a particular shape. The blazon of Bretagne is "Ermine", the shortest blazon in existence. A field of ermines is sable with argent spots. A field of erminois is Or with sable spots. A field of pean, finally, is sable with Or spots. category:Heraldic tinctures Category:Animal hair products

St. John's Cathedral

St. John's Cathedral is the name of a number of cathedrals:

North America

- St. John's Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio
- St. John's Cathedral in Edmonton, Canada
- St. John's Cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida
- St. John's Cathedral in Knoxville, Tennessee
- Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York, New York
- St. John's Cathedral in Providence, Rhode Island
- St. John's Cathedral in Wilmington, Delaware

Asia

- St. John's Cathedral in Hong Kong
- St. John's Cathedral in Seongnam, South Korea

Europe

- St. John's Cathedral in Limerick, Ireland
- St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw, Poland
- St. John's Cathedral in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands
- St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta, Malta

Sejm

:This article is about the lower chamber of the Polish parliament. See Seimas for the parliament of Lithuania, Saeima for the parliament of Latvia, and Sejm River for the river of that name in Russia and Ukraine. The Sejm or Seym (pronounced: ]) is the lower house of the Polish parliament. Before the 20th century, the term "Sejm" referred to the entire three-chamber Polish parliament, comprising the lower house (Chamber of Deputies; Polish: Izba Poselska), the upper house (Senate; Polish: Senat) and the King. It was commonly termed a three-estate parliament. Since the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939), the term "Sejm" has referred only to the lower house of the parliament; the upper house is called the "Senat".

History

Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The power of early sejms grew during the times of Poland's fragmentation (1146-1295), when power of individual rulers waned and various councils and wiece grew stronger. The history of the Sejm dates back to 1182 and the first Sejm at Łęczyca. From 1493 forward, the indirect elections were repeated every two years. With the development of the unique Polish Golden Liberty the Sejm's powers increased. Golden Liberty (14th-century Poland).]] The term "sejm" comes from an old Polish expression denoting a meeting of the populace. Since the 14th century irregular sejms (described in various sources as latin contentio generalis, conventio magna, conventio solemna, parlamentum, parlamentum generale, dieta or Polish sejm walny) have been called by Polish kings. Since 1374 (przywilej koszycki), the king had to receive sejm permission to raise taxes. The General Sejm (Polish Sejm Generalny or Sejm Walny), first convoked by the king John I Olbracht in 1493 near Piotrków, evolved from earlier regional and provincial meetings (sejmiks. It followed most closely the sejmik generaly), which arose from the 1454 statute of Nieszawa, granted to the szlachta by King Casimir IV the Jagiellonian. Since 1493 Sejm Walny has been meeting irregulary, on average once a year. The first Sejm was composed of two chambers:
- A Senate of 81 bishops and other dignitaries
- A lower house, Sejm proper, of 54 deputies (Polish poseł, representing and elected by the local sejmiki) The number of deputies in the lower chamber grew in number and power as they pressured the king for more privileges. The spur toward action increased when landowners were drafted into military service (pospolite ruszenie). After 1569 Union of Lublin, the Kingdom of Poland was transformed into the federation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Sejms number was increased with the inclusion of the deputies from Lithuanian Sejmiks. Sejms severely limited the king's powers. They had the final decision in legislation, taxation, budget, and treasury matters (including military funding), foreign affairs and ennoblement. In 1573 Sejm guaranteed religious tolerance in the Commonwealth territory, making it a refuge from the ongoing reformation and counter-reformation wars. Until The Union of Lublin, Sejms were held near Piotrkow in the Warsaw Royal Castle. Since 1673 each third Sejm was to take place in Grodno in Lithuania. It began with a ceremonial mass, the Kanclerz (Chancellor) decreed the king's intentions, and then the senators had a voice. Afterwards, the king and Senate debated on the most important matters (usually foreign affairs), while deputies debated separately under the leadership of the marshal of the sejm. In matters deemed very important, both senat and the sejm debated together in the chamber of the senate. The legislation was drafted in the lower chamber (Sejm). Members of the Sejm presented its proposed legislation to the gathered deputies of the Sejm, where they were discussed at length. The legislation was commonly negotiated by a deputation from the lower house (Sejm) with the upper chamber (Senate) and the reigning monarch (considered to be a third, separate Sejm chamber on his own). upper chamber, 1182" (held at Łęczyca). Oil on canvas, 1888, National Museum, Warsaw.]] The king could not pass the laws himself without the approval of the Sejm, this being forbidden by szlachta privileges like nihil novi from 1505. According to the "Nihil Novi" constitution a law passed by the Sejm had to be agreed by the three estates (the king, the Senate and deputies from the Sejm). King Henry's Articles, signed by each king since 1573, required the king to call a general sejm (lasting six weeks) every two years, and provisions for the extraordinary sejm (Polish: sejm ekstraordynaryjny, nadzwyczajny) were also set down in this act. Extraordinary sejms could be called in times of national emergency and last shorter, for example, a sejm deciding whether to call pospolite ruszenie should not last longer than two weeks. The Marshal (or Speaker) of the Sejm concluded the debates, but he was required to ask the members whether his understanding of the chamber's views was correct and unanimously accepted. If anyone declared his opposition (Latin contradictio), the debate would be reopened and would continue until the opponents of the measure abandoned their opposition. Until the end of 16th century, unanimity, was not required and majority voting was most common. Later, with the rise of the magnates power, unanimity principle was reinforced with the szlachta right of liberum veto (from Latin, meaning: I don't allow). The pro-majority voting party almost disappeared in the 17th century, and majority voting was preserved only at the confederated sejms (sejm rokoszowy, konny, konfederacyjny). To increase the chance of unanimity agreement voting was delayed until an agreement has been reached (often through lengthy discussions). It was enough if no formal exception was taken by anyone – even if some opposition did exist, it would not necessarily be upheld. If, however, the deputies could not attain even such passive unanimity, or if the chamber's negotiations with the king proved futile, then after six weeks (the upper time limit of its sittings) had elapsed, the deliberations as a whole were declared null and void. Rarely, a deputy from a local sejmik could object to the agreement and be granted an exception from this law, allowing it to pass. From the mid-17th century onwards, any objection to a Sejm resolution from either a deputy or a senator automatically caused other, previously approved resolutions to be rejected. This was because all resolutions passed by a given Sejm formed a whole and were published as constitutions of the Sejm e.g. Anno Domini 1667. 17th century of 1788–1792 adopts the May 3rd Constitution at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.]] In the 16th century no single person or small group dared to hold up proceedings, but from second half of 17th century the liberum veto was used to paralyze the Sejm and brought the Commonwealth to the brink of collapse. The liberum veto was finally abolished by the Constitution of 3rd May in 1795. The early statutes passed by the Sejm were called "constitution" (Polish konstytucja or konstytucja sejmowa) and should not be confused with modern meaning of this word. The konstytucja passed by the Sejm had denoted all the legislation, of whatever character, that had been passed at a Sejm. Only with the May 3rd Constitution in 1795 did "konstytucja" assume its modern sense of a fundamental document of governance. The final version of approved acts (which from the late 15th century until the early 16th century were divided into perpetual and temporary constitutions ('constitutiones perpetuae' and 'constitutiones temporales')) were drawn up at the sealing sessions, held after the close of the Sejm debate. These sessions were attended by the chancellor, the Speaker of the Sejm and members from the Sejm and the Senate. From the end of the 16th century, the constitutions they signed were printed, stamped with the royal seal, and sent to the chancelleries of the municipal councils of all voivodships of the Crown and also to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After 1543 the resolutions were written in Polish rather than Latin. Those resolutions were presented soon after the Sejm to local meetings, known as sejmiki relacyjne. In accordance with the act of 1613, immediately after the close of Sejm debates, the constitutions it had passed were published by entering them in the registers where the Sejm had met. Copies still had to be sent to municipal councils (urzędy grodzkie) throughout the country, where they were added to the municipal registers (księgi grodzkie). It is estimated that since 1493 and 1793 sejms were held 240 times, and total debate time was 44 years. Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Sejm of the Second Polish Republic

Sejm of the People's Republic of Poland

Under the Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland, the Senate was abolished in 1946 and the Sejm became the sole legislative chamber.

Sejm of modern Poland

In 1989, the Senate was reinstated as the upper house of a bicameral National Assembly, with the Sejm becoming the lower house. Since the fall of communism, the Sejm now comprises 460 deputies elected by proportional representation every four years.

External links

- [http://www.sejm.gov.pl/english.html official website]
- [http://www.sejm.gov.pl/english/sejm/sejm.htm Description of the modern Sejm's role in the Polish political system] Poland Poland Category:Politics of Poland category:Government of Poland Category:Buildings and structures in Poland Category:Warsaw Category:Historical legislatures

Polish language

Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is the official language of Poland. Polish is the main representative of the Lechitic branch of the Western Slavic languages. It originated in the areas of present-day Poland from several local Western Slavic dialects, most notably those spoken in Greater Poland and Lesser Poland. Polish was once a lingua franca in various regions of Central and Eastern Europe, mostly due to the political, cultural, scientific and military influence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Although no longer having as great an influence outside of Poland, due in part to the dominance of the Russian language, it is still sometimes spoken or at least understood in western border areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania as a second language.

Outside Influence

Polish has been influenced by contact with foreign languages (foremost Latin, Czech, French, German, Italian, Old Belarusian, Russian and recently it has been virtually bombarded by English, especially American English language elements). Many words have been borrowed from German as a result of heavy contact with Germans and the German language. This process has been going on since medieval times. Examples include szlachta (from German Adelsgeschlecht=nobility), rachunek (Rechnung=account), ratusz (Rathaus=town hall), burmistrz (Bürgermeister=mayor; word used only for mayors of smaller cities), handel (Handel=commerce), kac (Kater=hangover), kartofel (Kartoffel=potato; this word is dialectal: most Poles use the word 'ziemniak' for potato, but both words are understood anywhere), cukier (Zucker=sugar), kelner (Kellner=waiter) and malarz (Maler=painter; also the word 'malować' has entered Polish as the verb "to paint"). This is especially true of the regional dialects of Upper Silesia. There are also several words of French origin in the language, most likely dating from the Napoleon era, such as ekran (écran=screen), rekin (requin=shark), meble (meuble=furniture), fotel (fauteuil=armchair), plaża (plage=beach) and koszmar (cauchemar=nightmare). Some place names have also been adapted from French, such as the two Warsaw boroughs of Żoliborz (joli bord=beautiful riverside) and Mokotów (mon coteau=my cottage), as well as the suburb of Żyrardów (from the name Girard, with the Polish suffix -ów attached to form the town's name). Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example "hańba" and "brama" from Czech. When borrowing international words, Polish often changes their spelling. For example, the Latin suffix spelled '-tion' in English corresponds to '-cja'. To make the word plural, -cja becomes -cje. Examples of this include "inauguracja" (inauguration), dewastacja (devastation), konurbacja (conurbation) and konotacje (connotations). Also, the digraph 'qu' becomes 'kw' (kwadrat=quadrant; frekwencja=frequency). Since 1945, as the result of mass education and mass migrations (which affected several countries after the Second World War, with Poland being an extreme case) standard Polish has become far more homogeneous, although regional dialects persist, particularly in the south and south-west in the hilly areas bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. In the western and northern territories, resettled in large measure by Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union, the older generation speaks a dialect of Polish characteristic of the former eastern provinces.

Classification

The Polish language is the most widely-spoken of the Slavic language subgroup of Lechitic languages which include Kashubian (the only surviving dialect of Pomeranian language) and the extinct Polabian language. The three languages, along with Upper and Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak, belong to the West branch of Slavic languages. To English ears, it sounds virtually indistinguishable from Russian, and indeed the two languages have a very similar grammar; however, Polish and Russian speakers cannot understand each other without training due to a very different vocabulary. In other words, to a speaker of one, the other sounds to them about how the first stanza of the poem Jabberwocky would sound to an English-speaker.

Geographic distribution

Polish is mainly spoken in Poland. In fact, Poland is one of the most homogenous European countries in terms of its mother tongue, as close to 97% of Polish citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue. After the Second World War the previously Polish territories annexed by the USSR retained a large amount of the Polish population that was unwilling or unable to migrate toward the post-1945 Poland and even today ethnic Poles in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine constitute large minorities. In Lithuania 9 percent of the population declared Polish to be their mother tongue. It is by far the most widely used minority language in the Vilniaus Apskritis (Vilnius region) (26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results), but it is also present in other apskritis. In Ukraine, Polish is most often used in the Lwów and Łuck regions. Western Belarus has an important Polish minority, especially in the Brześć and Grodno regions. There are also significant numbers of Polish speakers in Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, UAE, the UK and the United States. In the U.S. the number of people of Polish descent is over 9 million, see: Polish language in the United States, but most of them do not use Polish in their everyday communications. According to the United States 2000 Census, 667,414 Americans of age 5 years and over reported Polish as language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English or 0.25% of the U.S. population.

Dialects

It has several dialects that correspond in the main to the old tribal divisions; the most significant of these (in terms of numbers of speakers) are Great Polish (spoken in the west), Little Polish (spoken in the south and southeast), Mazovian (Mazur) spoken throughout the centre and east of the country, and Silesian spoken in the southwest. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language, whose remaining speakers (53.000, according to 2002 Census) live around the city of Gdańsk near the Baltic Sea, predominantly to the west of the city. There are also several, now mostly extinct, regional dialects of Polish, including the Warsaw dialect. Small numbers of people in Poland also speak Belarusian, Ukrainian, and German as well as several varieties of Romany.

Phonology

Orthography

The Polish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet but uses diacritics such as kreska (graphically similar to acute accent), superior dot and ogonek. Polish orthography also includes seven digraphs: Note that although the Polish orthography is mostly phonetic, some sounds may be written in more than one way:
- as either h or ch
- as either ż or rz (though rż denotes a cluster)
- as either u or ó
- some soft consonants as either ć, dź, ń, ś, ź, or ci, dzi, ni, si, zi Unlike in English, if consonants are doubled in script, it means that they are also doubled in pronunciation, for example: wanna , not ('bathtub'); motto , not .

Grammar

Polish is often said to be one of the most difficult languages for non-native speakers to learn; of course, this depends on one's native language. While difficult for English speakers, it is relatively easy for speakers of Russian and other Slavic languages. It has a complex gender system with five genders: neuter, feminine and three masculine genders (personal, animate and inanimate). There are 7 cases and 2 numbers. Nouns, adjectives and verbs are inflected, and both noun declension and verb conjugation are highly irregular. Every verb is either perfective or imperfective. Verbs often come in pairs, one of them imperfective and the other perfective (usually imperfective verb plus a prefix), but often there are many perfective verbs with different prefixes for single imperfective words. Tenses are: Movable suffix is usually attached to verb or to the most accented word of sentence, like question preposition. Sometimes the sentence may be emphasised with a particle -że- (-ż). So what have you done ? can be:
- Co zrobiliście?
- Coście zrobili?
- Cóżeście zrobili? (It could be derived from Cóż zrobiliście? which actually sounds odd and is not used) All the above examples show inflected forms of the verb "zrobić" for the subject "you" informal plural ("wy"). However, it is of note that none of the above examples include the subject itself. The inclusion of the subject is not necessary here because Polish is a pro-drop language. This means that a subject does not need to be used with an inflected verb. Instead, the reader or listener can tell which subject is implied through the type ending on the verb. This is different for each pronoun in Polish with the exceptions of on/ona/ono (he/she/it) which all have the same verb ending as each other and oni/one (they - of a group including male humans/they - of a group of people or things not including male humans) which also have the same verb ending as each other. Because the subject can be dropped, if the subject is used with an inflected verb it places the emphasis of the sentence on the subject. Of the above three examples, a native speaker would not include the subject in the middle sentence and would be unlikely to include a subject in the last one. The below examples show how the subject could be included in such sentences, where possible:
- Co wy zrobiliście?
- Coście zrobili? (a native speaker would not use a subject here)
- Co wyście zrobili? (this example places the stress strongly on "you" -- "wy"+ście)
- Co żeście zrobili? (this example includes the use of the że- particle - considered very colloquial) Past participle depends on number and gender, so 3rd person, singular past perfect tense can be:
- zrobił (he made/did)
- zrobiła (she made/did)
- zrobiło (it made/did)

Word order

From Wikibooks' Polish Language Course. Basic word order in Polish is SVO, however it is possible to move words around in the sentence, and to drop subject, object or even sometimes verb, if they are obvious from context. These sentences mean the same ("Ala (Alice) has a cat"):
- Ala ma kota
- Ala kota ma
- Kota ma Ala
- Ma Ala kota
- Kota Ala ma
- Ma kota Ala Yet only the first of these sounds natural in Polish, and others should be used for emphasis only, if at all. If a question mark is added to the end of those sentences they will all mean "does Ala have a cat?"; an optional 'czy' could be added to the begining but native speakers don't use it. The first is usually used as a reassuring question (really, Ala has a cat?). The fourth would be used as a standard question (does Ala have a cat?) If apparent from context, you can drop the subject, object or even the verb:
- Ma kota - can be used if it's obvious who is being talked about
- Ma - answer for "Czy Ala ma kota?" ("Does Ala have a cat?")
- Ala - answer for "Kto ma kota?" ("Who has a cat?")
- Kota - answer for "Co ma Ala?" ("What does Ala have?")
- Ala ma - answer for "Kto z naszych znajomych ma kota?" ("Which of our friends has a cat?") Note the marker "czy" which is used to start a yes/no question, much as the French use "est-ce que". There is a tendency in Polish to drop the subject rather than the object and you rarely know the object but not the subject. If the question was "Kto ma kota ?" (who has a cat ?), the answer should be "Ala" alone, without a verb. In particular, "ja" (I) and "ty" (you, singular), and also their plural equivalents "my" (we) and "wy" (you, plural), are almost always dropped.

Conjugation

Conjugation of "iść" ("walking" in Present Continuous):
- Ja idę – I am walking
- Ty idziesz – You are walking
- On/ona/ono idzie – He/she/it is walking
- My idziemy – We are walking
- Wy idziecie – You are walking (Plural)
- Oni/one idą – They are walking ("Oni" masculine, "one" feminine or neuter)

Vocabulary

Singular:
ja - I
ty - you
on - he
ona - she
ono - it
Plural:
my - we
wy - you (Plural)
oni - they (mixed group, both men and women)
one - they (group of only women and children or things) pies - dog
krowa - cow
świnia - pig
mucha - fly
osa - wasp
pszczoła - bee
drzewo - tree
kwiat - flower
Anglia - England
Szkocja - Scotland
Walia - Wales
Irlandia - Ireland
Wielka Brytania - Great Britain
Zjednoczone Królestwo - United Kingdom
Niemcy - Germany
Japonia - Japan
Stany Zjednoczone Ameryki - The United States of America
Francja - France
Hiszpania - Spain
Wenezuela - Venezuela
Polska - Poland
Polak - Pole
polski - Polish
Konstantynopolitańczykowianeczka - a little girl from Constantinople (the longest word in Polish)

Notes

¹ You can hear the voice samples by clicking on the Polish example (ogg format).

External links

- [http://slownik.web-monkeys.com/ słownik polski - polish dictionary]
- [http://www.polishgrammar.com/ 1,000 free multi-choice Polish grammar drills online]
- [http://www.polish-dictionary.com/ Basic English-Polish Dictionary]
- [http://www.polish-translations.com/PolishTranslation/ Articles about Polish Language]
- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=pol Polish language on Ethnologue]
- [http://www.fdicts.com/dictlist1.php?k1=75 All free Polish dictionaries]
- [http://sjp.pwn.pl/ PWN Polish-Polish Dictionary]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Polish-english/ Webster's Online Polish-English Dictionary]
- [http://www.dict.pl Polish-English dictionary]
- [http://www.anglik.net/polish.htm Free Polish Translation]
- [http://www.poltran.com/ Online translation Polish<->English]
- [http://golem.umcs.lublin.pl/users/ppikuta/lessons/less0.htm Polish language course]
- [http://www.langsites.com/Polish.htm Polish On-line]
- [http://seelrc.org:8080/grammar/pdf/compgrammar_polish.pdf A Concise Polish Grammar, by Ronald F. Feldstein (110-page 600-KB pdf)]
- [http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu Univ. of Pittsburgh: Polish Language Website] Category:Languages of Poland Category:West Slavic languages ko:폴란드어 ja:ポーランド語 th:ภาษาโปแลนด์

Codification

:For linguistic codification, see codification (linguistics). In law, codification is the process of collecting and restating the law of a jurisdiction in certain areas, usually by subject. Also see legal code. Contrary to popular belief, the common law has been codified in many jurisdictions in many areas; examples include the Law of General Obligations of New York State, the English Criminal Code (originally judge-made common law) and the California Civil Code. In civil law jurisdictions, codification has also occurred in many areas. The codification movement developed out of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and began in several European countries during the late 18th century (see civil code). However, it only gained significant momentum with the enactment of the French Napoleonic Code in 1804. In the United States acts of Congress (i.e., Federal statutes) are published chronologically (that is, in the order in which they become law -- often by being signed by the President) on an individual basis in official pamphlets called "slip laws," and are grouped together in official bound book form (also chronologically) as "session laws." The "session law" publication for Federal statutes is called the United States Statutes at Large. Any given act may be only one page long, or hundreds of pages, in length. An act may be classified as either a "Public Law" or a "Private Law." Because each Congressional act may contain laws on a variety of topics, many acts (or portions thereof) are also rearranged and published in a topical, subject matter codification. The official codification of Federal statutes is called the United States Code. Generally, only "Public Laws" are codified. The United States Code is divided into "titles" (based on overall topics) numbered 1 through 50. Title 18, for example, contains many of the Federal criminal statutes. Title 26 is the Internal Revenue Code. Even in code form, however, many statutes by their nature pertain to more than one topic. For example, the statute making tax evasion (see Tax avoidance/evasion) a felony pertains to both criminal law and tax law, but is found only in the Internal Revenue Code. Other statutes pertaining to taxation are found not in the Internal Revenue Code but instead in (for example) the Bankruptcy Code (i.e., Title 11 of the United States Code) or the Judiciary Code (Title 28). Further, portions of some Congressional acts (such as the provisions for the effective dates of amendments to codified laws) are not themselves codified at all. These statutes may by found by referring to the acts as published in "slip law" and "session law" form. However, commercial publications that specialize in legal materials often arrange and print the uncodified statutes with the codes to which they pertain. In the United States, the individual states (either officially or through private commercial publishers) generally follow the same three-part model for the publication of their own statutes: slip law, session law, and codification. Category:Legal codes ja:法典化

Sejm

History

Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Sejm of the Second Polish Republic

Sejm of the People's Republic of Poland

Under the Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland, the Senate was abolished in 1946 and the Sejm became the sole legislative chamber.

Sejm of modern Poland

External links

Parliament

:This article is about the legislative institution. For alternative meanings, see: Parliament (disambiguation). Parliament (disambiguation).]] A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system derived from that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French parlement, the action of parler (to speak): a parlement is a talk, a discussion, hence a meeting (an assembly, a court) where people discuss matters. While all parliaments are legislatures, not all legislatures are parliaments. The British Parliament is often referred to as the "Mother of Parliaments"—in fact a misquotation of John Bright, who remarked in 1865 that "England is the Mother of Parliaments"—because the British Parliament has been the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts have created many other parliaments. The first English Parliament was formed during the reign of King Henry III in the 13th century. In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. The House of Commons is composed of over 600 members who are directly elected by British citizens to represent various cities, communities, and other electoral districts. The party that can win the most seats in the House of Commons forms the government, and the party leader becomes the Prime Minister and head of government. Legislation originates from and is voted on by members of the House of Commons. If passed, it goes to the House of Lords. The House of Lords is a body of long-serving, unelected members: 92 of whom inherit their seats and 574 of whom have been appointed to lifetime seats. The Lords must vote to approve all legislation from the House before it can go before the monarch and receive the formal ratification to become a law (however, under certain circumstances the House of Commons may overrule it using the Parliament Acts). In addition, specific members of the House of Lords act as the ultimate court of appeal in the United Kingdom. In a similar fashion, most other nations with parliaments have to some degree emulated the British, "three-tier" model. Most countries in Europe and the Commonwealth have similarly organized parliaments with a largely ceremonial head of state who formally opens and closes parliament, a large elected lower house and a smaller, upper house. The lower house is almost always the originator of legislation, and the upper house is the body that offers the "second look" and decides whether to veto or approve the bills. This style of two houses is called bicameral; also parliaments with only one house exist (see unicameralism). A parliament's lower house is usually composed of at least 200 members, in countries with populations of over 3 million. The number of seats rarely exceeds 400, even in very large countries. The upper house customarily has anywhere from 20, 50, or 100 seats, but almost always significantly fewer than the lower house. A nation's prime minister ("PM") is almost always the leader of the majority party in the lower house of parliament, but only holds his or her office as long as the "confidence of the house" is maintained. If members of parliament lose faith in the leader for whatever reason, they can often call a vote of no confidence and force the PM to resign. This can be particularly dangerous to a government when the distribution of seats is relatively even, in which case a new election is often called shortly thereafter. Parliaments can be contrasted with congresses in the model of the United States. Typically, congresses do not select or dismiss the head of government, and cannot themselves be dissolved early as is often the case for parliaments.

List of parliaments

:List is not exhaustive

Contemporary national parliaments

- European Parliament
- Pan-African Parliament
- Central American Parliament
- Parliament of Australia
- Parliament of Canada :
- The federal government of Canada has a bicameral parliament, and each of Canada's 10 provinces has a unicameral parliament.
- Parliament of the Fiji Islands
- Parliament of France (Parlement)
- Parliament of Germany - The Bundestag
- Hungarian Parliament Building (Országház)
- Parliament of India consisting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha
- Parliament of Israel - The Knesset
- Parliament of Italy (Parlamento Italiano)
- Parliament of Malaysia
- Parliament of New Zealand
- Parliament of Serbia and Montenegro
- Parliament of Singapore
- Parliament of South Africa
- Parliament of Sri Lanka
- Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago
- Parliament of the United Kingdom
- Scottish Parliament

Equivalent national legislatures

- Majlis, e.g. in Iran
- in Afghanistan : Wolesi Jirga (elected, legislative lower house) and Meshrano Jirga (mainly advisory, indirect representation); in special cases, e.g. as constituant assembly, a Loya Jirga

Defunct

- Parliament of Ireland (1200-1801 AD)
- Parliament of Southern Ireland (1921-1922)
- Parliament of Northern Ireland (1921-1973)

Subnational parliaments

- In the federal (bicameral) kingdom of Belgium, after many constitutional contortions but no violent confrontation, there is a curious asymmetrical constellation serving as directly elected legislatures for three 'territorial' regions -Flanders (Dutch language), Brussels (bilingual, certain peculiarities of competence, also the only region not comprizing any of the 10 provinces) and Walloonia (French)- and three cultural communities -Flemish (Dutch language, competent in Flanders and for the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Brussels), Francophone (French language, for Walloonia and francopones in Brussels) and German (for speakers of that language in a a few designated municipalities in the east of the Walloon Region, always alongside francophones but under two different regimes)
- Vlaams Parlement ('Flemish Parliament'; originally styled Vlaamse Raad 'Flemish Council') served both the Flemish Community (whose same it uses) and, in application of a Belgian constitutional option, of the region of Flanders (in all matters of regional competence, its decisions have no effect in Brussels)
- parliament of the French Community
- parliament of the German Community
- parliament of the Walloon region
- parliament of the Brussels 'capital' region;
- within the capital's regional assembly however, there also exist two so-called Community Commissions (fixed numbers, not an automatical repartition of the regional assembly), a Dutch-speaking one and a francophone one, for various matters split up by linguistic community but under Brssels' regional competence, and even 'joint community ccmmissions' consisting of both for certain instititutions that could be split up but aren't

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Republic of the Two Nations, or Republic of Both Nations (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, Lithuanian: Žečpospolita or Abiejų tautų respublika, Belarusian: Рэч Паспалітая or Рэч Паспалітая Абодвух Народаў, Latin: Regnum Serenissima Poloniae) was a federal monarchy–republic formed by the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1569, lasting until 1795. The Commonwealth was an extension of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, a personal union between those two states that had existed from 1386. The Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous states in Europe and for over two centuries successfully withstood wars with the Teutonic Order, the Mongols, the Russians, the Ottomans, and Sweden. The Commonwealth was notable for its political system, which was a precursor to modern democracy and federation; for its remarkable religious tolerance; and for the second-oldest codified national constitution in the world. Its economy was dominated by agriculture. While the Commonwealth's first century was a golden age for both Poland and Lithuania, the second century was marked by military defeats, a

Constitution of May 3

History

Background

Drafting and Adoption

The fall

Legacy

Features

Notes

See also

References

External links

Ermine

St. John's Cathedral

North America

Asia

Europe

Sejm

History

Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Sejm of the Second Polish Republic

Sejm of the People's Republic of Poland

Sejm of modern Poland

See also

External links

Polish language

Outside Influence

Classification

Geographic distribution

Dialects

Phonology

Orthography

Grammar

Word order

Conjugation

Vocabulary

Notes

See also

External links

Codification

Sejm

History

Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Sejm of the Second Polish Republic

Sejm of the People's Republic of Poland

Sejm of modern Poland

See also

External links

Parliament

List of parliaments

Contemporary national parliaments

Equivalent national legislatures

Defunct

Subnational parliaments

See also

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth