Summary: 1. Introduction. The Role of Constitutional Justice in the Constitutional System of the Modern State and Some Methodological Remarks. – 2. Issues of Constitutional Justice Independence in Poland. – 2.1. Position of the Constitutional Tribunal (as a starting point). – 2.2. Changes in the Constitutional Judiciary introduced in 2015 and in the Following Years. – 2.3. Conclusion to Part I. – 3. Crises of Constitutional Justice in Ukraine. – 3.1. Position of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (short overview). – 3.2. The Crisis Situation of 2020-2021. – 3.3. Conclusion to Part II. –4. Common Features and Different Approaches to Resolving Crisis Situations in Poland and Ukraine. – 5. Conclusions.
The article is devoted to the problems of the functioning of constitutional justice in Poland and Ukraine. Applying the methodology of comparative law research and empirical analysis, the authors consider the problems of the violation of the principle of independence of constitutional justice in these countries, explore common and distinctive features of crisis situations, try to find the reasons that cause them, and deduce the relationship between the legitimacy of the decisions of the constitutional justice bodies and independence of these bodies. The authors substantiate and analyse two components of the legitimacy of the constitutional courts’ decisions: substantive (fairness and compliance of decisions with the principles of constitutionalism) and instrumental (proper validity and argumentation, which leave no doubt about the fairness and correctness of such a decision).