Constitution of May 3, 1791 - Features

Features

The Polish constitution was one of several to reflect Enlightenment influences, in particular Montesquieu's advocacy of a separation and balance of powers between the three branches of government and his advocacy of a bicameral legislature. Once the government was established, it aimed to ensure, in accordance with Article V, that "the integrity of the states, civil liberty, and social order shall always remain in equilibrium". According to Polish-American historian Jacek Jędruch, the liberality of its provisions, "fell somewhere below the French, above the Canadian, and left the Prussian far behind", but did not equal the American Constitution". King Poniatowski described it as "founded principally on those of England and the United States of America, but avoiding the faults and errors of both, and adapted as much as possible to the local and particular circumstances of the country." George Sanford notes that the Polish constitution provided "a constitutional monarchy close to the English model of the time."

The constitution referred to the country's "citizens", which for the first time in Polish legislation was meant to include also townspeople and peasants, not just nobles. The document's preamble and 11 individual articles introduced the principle of popular sovereignty (applied to the nobility and townspeople) and a separation of powers into legislative (a bicameral Sejm), executive ("the King and the Guardians", the Guardians of the Laws being the newly established top governmental entity) and judicial branches. It advanced the democratization of the polity by limiting the excessive legal immunities and political prerogatives of landless nobility. The earlier Free Royal Cities Act (Miasta Nasze Królewskie Wolne w Państwach Rzeczypospolitej) of April 18 (or 21), 1791, was stipulated in Article III to be integral to the constitution. Personal security (neminem captivabimus) was extended to and empowered the townspeople, who also gained the right to acquire landed property, and became eligible for military officers' commissions and public offices, such as reserved seats in the Sejm itself and seats in the executive commissions of the Treasury, the Police and the Judiciary. Membership in the nobility was also made easier for burghers to acquire.

Prawo o sejmikach, the act on regional assemblies (sejmiks), passed earlier on March 24, 1791 (article VI), was similarly recognized. This law introduced major changes to the electoral ordinance, as it reduced the enfranchisement of the noble class. Previously, all nobles had been eligible to vote in sejmiks, which de facto meant that many of the poorest, landless nobles (known as "clients" or "clientele" of local magnates) voted as the magnates bade them. Now the voting right was tied to a property qualification (one had to own or lease land and pay taxes, or be closely related to a person of such qualifications, to be eligible to vote). Active voting rights were also taken from nobles who held property granted them by magnates or the king, to remove the temptation to vote so as to please their benefactors. Some 300,000 of 700,000 otherwise eligible nobles were thus disfranchised, much to their displeasure. Voting rights were also restored to landowners who were in military service (rights that they had lost in 1775). A common practice at that time, voting was limited to males of at least 18 years of age. The eligible voters would elect deputies to local (county, Polish: powiat) sejmiks, which elected deputies to the General Sejm.

With half the nobility disfranchised and some half million burghers in the Commonwealth now substantially enfranchised, the Great Sejm's early acts did much to increase equality in the distribution of political power, although the situation of the politically less conscious and active classes, notably the Jews and peasants, still waited to be addressed. While the Government Act also placed the Commonwealth's peasantry "under the protection of the national law and government" – a first step toward ending serfdom and enfranchising the country's largest and most oppressed social class – the peasant question was far from resolved and serfdom remained in force. It would take the Second Partition and Kościuszko's Proclamation of Połaniec to move the matter forward.

Legislative power, as specified by Article VI, rested with the bicameral parliament (elected Sejm and appointed Senate) and the king. The May 3 Constitution provided for a Sejm, "ordinarily" meeting every two years and "extraordinarily" whenever required by a national emergency (as Sejm was to be ready to be called into session at any time of need). Its lower chamber – the Chamber of Deputies (Izba Poselska) – comprised 204 deputies (2 from each powiat, 68 each from the provinces of Greater Poland, Lesser Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) and 21 plenipotentiaries of royal cities (7 from each province). The royal chancellery was to inform the sejmiks of the legislation it intended to propose in advance, so that the deputies would have time to prepare for the discussions in the Sejm. Not only the king, but also all deputies had legislative initiative, and most matters (peace, commercial treaties, budget, war taxes, currency issues, education, police and treasury organization, requests of regional administration) required a simple majority. Two-thirds majority was required for treaties of alliance, declaration of war, army complement, increases in national debt, and a three-fourth majority vote was needed for changes made to permanent taxation. Sejm's upper chamber – the Chamber of Senators (Izba Senacka) – comprised 130–132 (sources vary) senators (voivodes, castellans, bishops and – without the right to vote – government ministers). The Senate was presided over by the king, who had one vote in it that could be used to break the ties. The Senate had a suspensive veto over the laws that Sejm passed, applicable till the next Sejm session, when it could be overruled.

Executive power, according to Article V and Article VII, was in the hands of "the king in his council", the council being a cabinet of ministers called the Guardians of the Laws (or Guard of the Laws, Straż Praw). The ministries could not create or interpret the laws, and all acts of the foreign ministry were provisional, subject to Sejm's approval. This council was presided over by the king and comprised the Roman Catholic Primate of Poland (who was also president of the Education Commission) and five ministers appointed by the king: a minister of police, minister of the seal (i.e. of internal affairs – the seal was a traditional attribute of the earlier Chancellor), minister of the seal of foreign affairs, minister belli (of war), and minister of treasury. In addition to the ministers, council members included – without a vote – the Crown Prince, the Marshal of the Sejm, and two secretaries. This royal council was a descendant of similar councils that had functioned over the previous two centuries since King Henry's Articles (1573) and the recent Permanent Council. Acts of the king required the countersignature of the respective minister. The stipulation that the king, "doing nothing of himself, shall be answerable for nothing to the nation," parallels the British constitutional principle that "The King can do no wrong." (In both countries, the respective minister was responsible for the king's acts.) The ministers, however, were responsible to Sejm, which could dismiss them by a two-third vote of no confidence by the members of both houses. Ministers could be also held accountable by the Sejm court, and Sejm could demand an impeachement trial of a minister with a simple majority vote. The king was the nation's commander-in-chief, commanding its armies; the institution of the hetman was not mentioned. The decisions of the royal council were carried out by commissions, including the previously created Commission of National Education, and the new Commissions for Police, the Military and the Treasury, whose members were elected by Sejm.

Article X stressed the importance of education of royal children, and tasked the Commission of National Education with this responsibility. To further enhance the Commonwealth's integration and security, the constitution abolished the erstwhile union of Poland and Lithuania in favor of a more unitary state. Its full establishment, supported by Stanisław August and Kołlątaj, was opposed by many Lithuanian deputies, and as a compromise, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania received numerous privileges guaranteeing its continued existence. Related acts included Deklaracja Stanów Zgromadzonych (Declaration of the Assembled Estates) of May 5, 1791, confirming the Government Act adopted two days earlier, and Zaręczenie Wzajemne Obojga Narodów (Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations, i.e., of the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) of October 22, 1791, affirming the unity and indivisibility of Poland and the Grand Duchy within a single state, and their equal representation in state-governing bodies. The Reciprocal Guarantee strengthened the Polish-Lithuanian union, while keeping many federal aspects of the state intact. The document, like the constitution itself, was translated into Lithuanian.

The constitution abolished several institutional sources of government weakness and national anarchy, including the liberum veto (replaced by a simple majority vote), confederations and confederated sejms, and the excessive sway of sejmiks stemming from the previously binding nature of their instructions to their Sejm deputies. The confederations were declared "contrary to the spirit of this constitution, subversive of government and destructive of society". Thus it strengthened the powers of the Sejm, moving the country closer towards a constitutional monarchy. The constitution also changed the government from an elective (in its unique Polish variant) to hereditary monarchy. The latter provision was meant to reduce the destructive vying influences of foreign powers at each royal election. The royal dynasty itself was elective, however, and if it were to die out, a new one would be chosen by "the Nation". In the period when regency was needed, the royal council would take that responsibility (as covered by Article IX). The king held the throne "by the grace of God and the will of the Nation", and "all authority derives from the will of the Nation." The institution of pacta conventa was preserved. On Stanisław August's death the Polish throne would become hereditary and pass to Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, of the House of Wettin, which had provided Poland's two most recent elective kings before Stanisław August (Frederick Augustus' daughter, Maria Augusta Nepomucena, was called the Infanta of Poland). This provision was contingent upon Frederic Augustus' consent, and he in fact declined the offer presented to him by Adam Czartoryski. In 1807, however, Napoleon convinced Frederic Augustus to become the king of the Duchy of Warsaw established by the French Emperor.

The judiciary was discussed in Article VIII, and separated from the two other branches of the government, to be served by elective judges. Courts of first instance existed in each voivodeship, and were in constant session. Appellate tribunals were established for the provinces, based on the reformed Crown Tribunal and Lithuanian Tribunal. Sejm also elected from its deputies the judges for the Sejm court (a precursor for the modern State Tribunal of Poland). Referendary courts of each province were to hear the cases of peasantry. Municipal courts, described in the law on towns, complemented this system.

Article I acknowledged the Roman Catholic faith as the "dominant religion", but guaranteed tolerance and freedom to all religions. Article II confirmed many old privileges of the nobility, stressing that all nobles are equal, and should enjoy personal security and the right to property. The Army was to be built up to 100,000 men. The constitution also provided additional levies on the nobility and clergy.

The May 3 Constitution remained to the last a work in progress. The provisions of the Government Act were fleshed out in a number of laws passed in May–June 1791: on sejm courts (two acts of May 13), the Guardians of the Laws (June 1), the national police commission (a ministry, June 17) and municipal administration (June 24). The constitution included provisions for its own revision, to be handled by an extraordinary Sejm held every 25 years. Its co-author Hugo Kołłątaj announced that work was underway on "an economic constitution ... guaranteeing all rights of property securing protection and honor to all manner of labor...". Yet a third planned basic law was mentioned by Kołłątaj: a "moral constitution," most likely a Polish analog to the American Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. A new civil and criminal code (tentatively called the Stanisław August Code) was in the works. The King also planned a reform improving the situation of Polish Jews.