Breaking the Constitution in Weimar Constitutionalism Cover Image

Przełamanie konstytucji w konstytucjonalizmie weimarskim
Breaking the Constitution in Weimar Constitutionalism

Author(s): Michał Bożek
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Constitutional Law, International Law
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: weimar constitutionalism; constitution; amending the constitution; breaking the constitution; the essence of the constitution

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is an analysis of the phenomenon of breaking the constitution. It comes from expierence of the german legal positivism from the second half of the nineteenth century and it is firmly rooted in the constitutional practice of the Second Reich. This practice was the passing of the laws in the mode required for the constitutional change. Their result was the modification of some of the constitutional norms without any change of their text. Such laws didn’t repeal the binding force of concrete norms directly, but they did it indirectly. Such laws didn’t become the part of the constitution in formal meaning, but they became the part of it in a material sense. This practice was accepted by the majority of the german constitutionalists and other representatives of legal science. Supporters of the practice were especially the authors of liberal­democratic views. While the authors of the conservative views rejected the provisions of the legal positivism and the practice of breaking the constitutional norms traeted as an extraordinary measure of the repealing of the binding force of them and it cannot violate the fundamental rules and values of the constitution. Nowadays the weimar authors discussion is the important source of inspiration for the participants of the global debate on the limits of the constitutional change and the need for separation and the protection of constitutional identity.

  • Issue Year: 2023
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 7-34
  • Page Count: 28
  • Language: Polish