Wincenty Skrzetuski on the Resolutions of the Permanent Council

Rev. Wincenty Skrzetuski, an outstanding political writer, lawyer and historian, has published an interesting characteristics of the Permanent Council (Rada Nieustająca), a new central institution established in Poland in 1775-76. These remarks were published in his handbook Prawo polityczne narodu polskiego (The Constitutional Law of Polish Nation). A big part of these remarks was dedicated to one of the most important prerogatives of the Permanent Council – the interpretation of existing laws by passing resolutions about them. Skrzetuski was stressing the importance of creation of the Council, which in his opinion was a kind of the first central government in the Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth. The final legal shape of the Permanent Council was a result of a compromise between the King’s tendencies to strengthen his political power and his opponents from the republican party. In Skrzetuski’s opinion the competence of the Permanent Council to interprete the existing laws had big importance for legal practice and was useful for the unification of laws. This competence was strongly criticized and even Skrzetuski was stressing that it was used in too many cases, especially in those which didn’t have to be interpretated