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The August Novelization (Polish : Nowela sierpniowa) of 2 August 1926 was a set of amendments to the 1921 March Constitution of Poland.
These amendments were proposed and adopted by national plebiscite after Józef Piłsudski took power in the May Coup.
There were four main clauses in the amendments.
The Sejm, officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
The president of the Council of Ministers, colloquially and commonly referred to as the prime minister, is the head of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The responsibilities and traditions of the office stem from the creation of the contemporary Polish state, and the office is defined in the Constitution of Poland. According to the Constitution, the president nominates and appoints the prime minister, who will then propose the composition of the Cabinet. Fourteen days following their appointment, the prime minister must submit a programme outlining the government's agenda to the Sejm, requiring a vote of confidence. Conflicts stemming from both interest and powers have arisen between the offices of President and Prime Minister in the past.
The president of Poland, officially the president of the Republic of Poland, is the head of state of the Republic of Poland. Their rights and obligations are determined in the Constitution of Poland. The president heads the executive branch. In addition, the president has the right to dissolve parliament in certain cases, can veto legislation, represents Poland in the international arena, and is the commander-in-chief.
The government of Poland takes the form of a unitary semi-presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government.
The Senate is the upper house of the Polish parliament, the lower house being the Sejm. The history of the Polish Senate stretches back over 500 years; it was one of the first constituent bodies of a bicameral parliament in Europe and existed without hiatus until the final partition of the Polish state in 1795. The contemporary Senate is composed of 100 senators elected by a universal ballot and is headed by the Marshal of the Senate. The incumbent Marshal of the Senate is Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska.
The Saeima is the parliament of the Republic of Latvia. It is a unicameral parliament consisting of 100 members who are elected by proportional representation, with seats allocated to political parties which gain at least 5% of the popular vote. Elections are scheduled to be held once every four years, normally on the first Saturday of October. The most recent elections were held in October 2022.
The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, or simply the Seimas, is the unicameral legislative body of the Republic of Lithuania. The Seimas constitutes the legislative branch of government in Lithuania, enacting laws and amendments to the Constitution, passing the budget, confirming the Prime Minister and the Government and controlling their activities.
The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Communist Poland, from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarność and other opposition groups to defuse growing social unrest.
The Council of State of the Republic of Poland was introduced by the Small Constitution of 1947 as an organ of executive power. The Council of State consisted of the President of the Republic of Poland as chairman, the Marshal and Vice-marshals of the Sejm, President of the Supreme Audit Office, and potential other members. The Council of State had the power to approve decrees issued by the Council of Ministers, exercise supreme control over the local national councils, approve promulgation of laws concerning the budget and military draft, declare a state of emergency and martial law, initiate legislation, and others.
The April Constitution of Poland was the general law passed by the act of the Polish Sejm on 23 April 1935. It introduced in the Second Polish Republic an authoritarian presidential system that no longer operated on the basis of the functional separation of powers. The constitution was adopted in violation of the previous March Constitution of 1921 as well as the rules of procedure of parliament, which is why it was questioned by a significant part of the opposition to the Sanacja government.
Poland has a multi-party political system. On the national level, Poland elects the head of state – the president – and a legislature. There are also various local elections, referendums and elections to the European Parliament.
The General Sejm was the bicameral legislature of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was established by the Union of Lublin in 1569 following the merger of the legislatures of the two states, the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland and the Seimas of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was one of the primary elements of the democratic governance in the Commonwealth. The sejm was a powerful political institution. The king could not pass laws without its approval.
The Supreme Court is the highest court in the Republic of Poland. It is located in the Krasiński Square, Warsaw.
The Supreme Audit Office is the supreme audit institution and also one of the oldest state institutions in Poland, created under the Second Republic on February 7, 1919, barely 3 months after the restoration of Poland's independence. It was created on the initiative of the Head of State, Józef Piłsudski. Its organisation and functioning are set out in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the NIK Act of 23 December 1994. The NIK is subordinate to the Sejm and it acts in accordance with the principle of collegial responsibility. The NIK is headed by the President who is appointed by the Sejm for a six-year term of office. The NIK performs audits related to, primarily, the execution of the state budget as well as public finance spending and management of public property by state and local governmental bodies and economic entities. Every year, the NIK submits three key documents to the Sejm: the analysis of the state budget execution and monetary policy guidelines, the opinion on the vote of discharge for the Council of Ministers and the annual report on the NIK’s activity.
The Constitution of the Polish People's Republic was a supreme law passed in communist-ruled Poland on 22 July 1952. It superseded the post-World War II provisional Small Constitution of 1947, which in turn replaced the pre-war April Constitution of 1935.
Elżbieta Barbara Witek is a Polish conservative politician of the Law and Justice party. Historian, history teacher by profession. Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland for the 8th and 9th parliamentary terms from 2019 to 2023.
The April Novelization was a set of changes to the 1952 Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland, agreed in April 1989, in the aftermath of the Polish Round Table Agreement.
The Polish Constitutional Tribunal crisis has been an ongoing political conflict in Poland starting in the second half of 2015 over the appointment of five of the 15 judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.
The State Protection Service is a Polish uniformed service which provides VIP security for the Polish government. It was formed on 1 February 2018 as a successor to the Government Protection Bureau.
The Polish constitutional crisis, also known as the Polish rule-of-law crisis, is a political conflict ongoing since 2015 in which the Polish government has been accused of failing to comply with European and Polish constitutional law. The 2015 elections resulted in the Law and Justice party winning control of both the presidency and the parliament. With this government trifecta, PiS used its power to appoint judges to the Constitutional Tribunal in 2015, leading to the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The government of Poland continued to expand its hold on the judiciary resulting in the 2017 Supreme Court crisis, and the 2019 Polish judicial disciplinary panel law. These events allowed the legislature and executive of the Polish government to have de facto control over judges and their appointments.
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