The Act of 13 July 2023 amending the Act on export insurance options guaranteed by the State Treasury as well as certain other acts K 15/23
On 18 September 2024, the Constitutional Tribunal considered the application filed by the President of the Republic of Poland with regard to the Act of 13 July 2023 amending the Act on export insurance options guaranteed by the State Treasury as well as certain other acts.
The Tribunal adjudicated that Article 2 and Article 12 of the Act of 13 July 2023 amending the Act on export insurance options guaranteed by the State Treasury as well as certain other acts are inconsistent with Article 118(1) and (3) as well as Article 119(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The Tribunal discontinued the proceedings as to the remainder. The ruling was unanimous.
At the hearing on 18 September 2024, the Constitutional Tribunal considered the application filed by the President of the Republic of Poland as regards the conformity to the Constitution of Article 2 and Article 12 of the Act of 13 July 2023 amending the Act on export insurance options guaranteed by the State Treasury as well as certain other acts (hereinafter: the Amending Act).
The Constitutional Tribunal limited its review to examining the conformity of the procedure for adopting the challenged provisions with the constitutional requirements. The Tribunal held that the amendments challenged by the President of the Republic – which were effectively adopted as Articles 2 and 12 – had been proposed at the stage of the first reading of the relevant bill and were not correlated with the adopted bill. Restrictions on the takeover of a generally accessible pharmacy are not directly normatively correlated with insurance options guaranteed by the State Treasury, support for exports, or the creation of a legal framework for supporting projects which serve the transformation of Poland’s energy sector. The Tribunal emphasised that the amendments in question did not deepen the scope ratione materiae of the Amending Act, and the adoption thereof was not indispensable for the complete implementation of the envisaged concept of the relevant bill. Therefore, the amendments did not meet the requirements set forth in Articles 118 and 119 of the Constitution.
The adoption of the challenged provisions also infringed Article 118(1) and Article 119(2) of the Constitution, as the right to propose an amendment to the bill was exercised in the way which resulted in bypassing the requirements for legislative initiative. With regard to the Amending Act, the challenged procedure also infringed the constitutional principle that the Sejm considers bills in the course of three readings (Art. 119(1) of the Constitution).
The Tribunal ruled on the non-conformity of Articles 2 and 12 of the Amending Act with Article 118(3) of the Constitution, having found that the scope of the amendments in question indicated that they actually constituted a new legislative initiative, and the authors of those amendments had not addressed the issue of expenditure resulting from the entry into force of such changes in the Act – the Pharmaceutical Law.
As to the remainder, the Tribunal discontinued the proceedings on the basis of Article 59(1)(3) of the Act of 30 November 2016 on the Organisation of the Constitutional Tribunal and the Mode of Proceedings Before the Constitutional Tribunal, due to the fact that the issuance of a judgment was useless.
The adjudicating bench of the Constitutional Tribunal in the case was composed of: Judge Zbigniew Jędrzejewski – Presiding Judge; Judge Bartłomiej Sochański – Judge Rapporteur; Judge Krystyna Pawłowicz; Judge Stanisław Piotrowicz; Judge Justyn Piskorski.