Parliamentary Control of Administrative Activities in the Polish People's Republic
| Published date | 01 February 1959 |
| Date | 01 February 1959 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1959.tb00893.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL
OF
ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES IN THE
POLISH PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC1
STEFAN ROZMARYN’
University
of
Warsaw
THE
problem
of
the efficient control of the activities of the Administration
is undoubtedly one of the major political, organizational, and social issues
of
our time. It exists in
all
countries regardless of their social and political
structure. This problem, however, acquires
a
special importance, both
politically and socially, in the socialist countries, for the very obvious
reason that in these states administrative activities have acquired dimen-
sions unknown even to the most developed ‘welfare states’. The socialist
state in Poland owns all banking and industry and runs virtually the entire
wholesale trade and 96 per cent. of the retail trade. It owns up to 12 per cent.
of the arable land and exploits it (with the exception of small peasant allot-
ments) through the state farms; in addition it owns all the forests of the
country to say nothing of the railways, posts, radio, and similar public
enterprises. This has necessarily entailed an immense expansion of the
administrative activities of state organs, and it makes the problem of
efficient control of these activities one of the foremost and acutest issues
of
a
socialist society. The political importance of this issue springs from
the fact that here we are dealing with the use of organized state power; and
the use of this power is an eminently political question. Its social impor-
tance becomes obvious if we bear in mind its impact on the position held
in the state by social classes, groups, and individuals.
Parliamentary control of administrative activities has
a
very important
role to play in the general system of external3 control of such activities. The
Polish Constitution
of
22
July 1952 vested in the Parliament (bearing the
traditional name of the ‘Seym’) the right and duty to control the functioning
A lecture delivered in the University of Oxford in May
1958.
Professor
of
Constitutional Law, University
of
Warsaw; corresponding member of the
Polish Academy
of
Sciences.
I
am speaking of ‘external control‘ in
so
far as this control is exercised by organs
or
agencies external to the Administration, i.e. not part of the framework
of
administrative
organs
of
the state.
Polltfcnl
Studies,
Vol.
VII,
No.
1
(1919,
70-85).
STEFAN
ROZMARYN
71
of all other organs
of
state authority and state administration.’ We find here,
explicitly mentioned, parliamentary control
of
administrative activities. In
the Polish Constitution, as in many other modern constitutions, this topic
is not left to constitutional conventions and parliamentary usage, but is
enshrined in the fundamental law of the land. The Constitution apparently
regards this right and duty as one of the foremost functions of the Seym,
ranking equally with the legislation. The essential, however, lies not in this
general proposition, but in the
forms
and instrumentalities by which this
constitutional function of parliamentary external control (for external it is)
is discharged by the Seym.
When we speak of control of administration it is usual to begin with the
influence of
a
parliament on the making and unmaking of the Government.
This influence of the Seym is decisive in law, for the Government as
a
whole
(collectively and individually) is appointed and recalled by the Parliament
itself, and not, as in the Cabinet system, by the ‘head of the state’2 with the
explicit or tacit approval of the Parliament. However, this power of the
Seym to make and unmake the Government does not constitute
a
function
of control proper. Control is always exercised over an existing organ. The
power of appointing and removing should be considered rather as
a
sanction or guarantee of the Seym’s functions of control over the Adminis-
tration and not
as a
part or element of parliamentary control over the
Government.
Further, it must be emphasized that the Constitution explicitly vests in
the Seym the function of controlling
all
administrative organs of the state
and not only the Government. Parliament is therefore authorized
by
law
to discharge this control directly in relation to all
central
and
local
adminis-
trative organs, and is not confined to indirect control of local bodies and
agencies (i.e. to
a
control exercised through the Government as responsible
to Parliament for activities of local organs and officials placed under its
authority).
These two points (making and unmaking of the Government; direct
control over all administrative organs, both central and local) are very
important, but rather as ‘law in the books’. As ‘law in action’ they are of
no particular consequence. The appointment and the recall of the Govern-
ment and of its individual members by the Seym
is
in practice only the
legal embodiment of political decisions reached by agreement of the three
governing parties’ (or rather their directive organs) which command
a
The Constitution
of
the Polish People’s Republic orders as follows: ‘The Seym passes
laws and exercises control over the functioning of other organs
of
State authority and
administration.’
In contemporary Poland the functions of the ‘head of the state’ are vested in the
‘Council of State’ (Constitution
of
the Polish People’s Republic, arts.
24-28).
They are: the Polish United Workers’ Party, the People’s Party (peasants), the Demo-
cratic Party (mainly crafts and liberal professions).
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