Idea prawa narodowego na łamach „Prawa” (1928–1939) i „Współczesnej Myśli Prawniczej” (1935–1939)

Abstract

At the turn of the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, the idea to elaborate Polish national law was born among some law students of Polish universities. The place where this concept was being shaped was the student journal “Law”, which from mid-thirties represented the majority of the academic law circles existing at law faculties of Polish universities, and then “Contemporary Legal Thought” on whose pages law faculty graduates presented their ideas.

The aim set by young lawyers was to formulate a legal doctrine whose centre would be constituted by a nation understood as a community based on centuries-old tradition of experiences. The form of national organisation which the publishers of the above mentiones journals attempted to create was a national state.

The shaping of national law was to be the consequence of the process of its nationalization (to make it national and free from foreign influences). This process was to take place in three areas: normative, axiological and psychological one. Therefore, in the first sphere, the eff orts were to be undertaken in order to make law national by basing it on historical sources of Polish constitutional tradition. The objective of the activities in the second area was to define the main ideas, that is, moral imperatives which had been developed in Polish politico-legal thought in its historical evolution, and in the third one — fundamental principles were to be determined deriving from the Polish nation’s experiences in its spiritual development.

The idea of national law formulated by these young lawyers should be perceived as the response to the conviction about the crisis of civilization prevailing in Europe at that time. This crisis, in their opinion, had moral, economic and political dimensions. They saw improvement of the contemporary relations in each of the mentioned spheres in the reception of national law in political practice.