O konflikcie wokół Trybunału Konstytucyjnego, prawie i społeczeństwie obywatelskim rozmawiamy z prof. dr hab. Ewą Łętowską, prawnikiem, członkinią rzeczywistą PAN, członkinią korespondentem PAU, członkinią Rady Naukowej INP PAN, pierwszą polską Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich i sędzią Trybunału Konstytucyjnego do 2002 roku.

The article asks the questions:
– How far can the authorities interfere with freedom of speech/freedom of scientific research? By what means and how can one effectively defend oneself against direct and indirect interference and manipulation?
– Can it be punished if someone considers the results of research to violate his or her personal rights (an open catalog: e.g. good name, cult of the deceased, or even “the right to national identity and pride”)? Is it then possible to demand withdrawal/correction of the scientist's findings or compensation?
Today, threats to the freedom of scientific research are made not so much by censoring science as by threatening the autonomy of universities; controlling the conditions of doing science (its dissemination); discouraging certain topics; self-censorship caused by a chilling effect. This is dangerous in flawed democracies, where no attention is paid to pluralism in the exercise of freedom and to ensuring some minimum protection of minority interests and proclaimed views. And at the same time in poor countries, where little resources are allocated to science, which induces the phenomenon of “chasing away from the bowl” and “rewarding with a better bowl”. Money allocated to science is a very effective means of both promoting and eliminating views. The existence of this phenomenon increases the perceived threat to freedom, even without explicitly encroaching on it (the chilling effect). Freedom of speech, freedom of scientific research are exposed to a specific threat conducted on attacks and an attempt to limit or even eliminate them – paradoxically – in the name of allegedly threatened pluralism of ideas and views. In this situation, the attackers use the idea of protecting individual freedom for expansive purposes. Not in the name of freedom of expression of one's own axiology, but in the name of forbidding this expression to others.

This essay (given at the PENClub Polska) deals with the relationship between constitutional matters and poetry. The essay takes a closer look at the poetry of Adam Zagajewski, Marcin Świetlicki, Julian Tuwim and Adam Bieszek. “There is nothing on us in the Constitution” – Marcin Świetlicki angrily declaims the bitterness of civil rejection in the poem “Under the volcano”. However, the poet is not right. The Constitution sometimes means more than it says directly. If it is silent about something, that does not always amount to rejection, as Świetlicki claims. The two first parts of the essay explain why the poet could have made such a mistake as to his presence in the Constitution. The third part expounds the change that is taking place in Poland: the rejection of the foundations of the Constitution without changing its text.

The conflict over the Constitutional Tribunal, law, and civil society through the eyes of Prof. Ewa Łętowska, lawyer and an ordinary member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Learning (PAU), a member of the Scientific Council of the PAS Institute of Law Studies, the first person to hold office as commissioner for human rights in Poland, a Highest Administrative Court judge in 1999-2002, and a Constitutional Tribunal judge in 2002-2011.