Social Justice in the Constitutional Complaint

Abstract

One of the means of protecting the individual's liberties and rights is – in accordance with Art.79.1 of the Constitution of the Polish Republic of April 2, 1997 – the institution of common constitutional complaint. The complaint may be laid by anyone whose constitutional liberties or rights have been violated. The detailed regulations for laying a constitutional complaint are defined by the Constitutional Tribunal Act of August 1, 1997. Along with the growing popularity of the constitutional complaint the frequency is growing of referring in the complaint to infringement of the rules following from Art. 2 and 32 of the Constitution – the rules of social justice and equality. The Constitutional Tribunal has been facing the necessity to decide if from the rules expressed in Art. 2 and 32 of the Constitution follow subjective rights of an individual, or if they are just systemic rules whose character is objective. The article presents the views of the Constitutional Tribunal on admissibility of referring to infringement of the rules of social justice and equality in a constitutional complaint as well as on the contents of those rules.