Comparative analysis Of Polish and French costitutions of 1791

Abstract

The article provides a comparative analysis of the 1791 Constitutions of Poland and France. The author comes to the conclusion that there exists the series of inherent similarities and differences between them. The former lies in more or less expressed influence on the content of these documents by the ideas of European Enlightment, the Declaration of Human and Citizens’ Rights (1789), the English parliamentary monarchy and the USA Constitution (1787) to proclaim, to a certain extent, the people as the source of power. The concept of Enlightment provided the total abolition of any social inequality of an individual before the law. The fundamental French Law consequently implemented these ideas into practice of the state system development and functioning. But the Constitution of Poland extended them only to the free classes: nobility, citizens, clergy and free peasants, though they did not affect serfs while they constituted the majority of the country’s population. Precisely, this feature has determined the restricted, half-by-half perception of the Enlightment concept by the main document of Poland. Such facts as the adopting of the Constitution by the national assembly, a two-year term of parliamentary legislature, the establishment of constitutional monarchy, the proclamation of a king as Saint and sacred, the commitment of the executive power to the king, the right to take the latter the lead of the armed forces, to give oath before succeeding to the Crown, to distribute powers, to restrict the right to vote, to introduce new legislation, the right to adopt can be referred to the similarities. The differences set the following: a radical eradication of the feudal system by the French Constitution, the dismissal of serfdom, estates, caste titles, privileges, awards and solemn guarantee by the Constitution of Poland of the maintenance of serfdom, the prevailing position of Gentry including all its privileges and property. When the people of France was proclaimed the source of power and sovereignty, the majority of population of Poland – serfs – was not included into the composition of «consolidated estates», that is why the provision of the Constitution concerning the genesis of power and its sovereignty did not refer to this layer. The Constitution of France provided for the unified classless court for the whole population of the country, while the Constitution of Poland constituted class judicial instances for nobility, citizens, free peasants, administration and prolonged the existence of the feudal court judgment, Relational and Kurland courts. Obviously, the radical attitude of the Constitution of France towards the feudalism, its revolutionary importance have determined its constant world-wide fame and its position number one in the constitutionalism sharing the achievements with the USA Constitution of 1787. Conversely, the maintenance of fundamental feudal background, the long-term absence of sovereignty and territorial integrity turned out to be the principal factors of historical «forgetting» of the Constitution of Poland

Keywords

• Конституція
•  Польща
•  Франція
•  розподіл влад