Lawyers’ Meetings and their Role in the Integration of the Legal System of the 2nd Republic of Poland

Abstract

The numerous initiatives put forward in Poland after WW1 had one main objective: to integrate the legal community. Among those initiatives was a national meeting of lawyers. Three of them had taken place in Vilnius (1924), Warszawa (1929) and Katowice (1934), while the fourth one of the series, to be held in Gdynia in 1939, never materialised.

Those lawyers' meetings constituted a forum on which different opinions on various important issues vital to the interest of the legal community were exchanged. Much time was devoted to the unification of laws and many of the motions that had then been formulated were subsequently reflected in the work of the Codifying Committee. Many postulates urged establishment of international contacts with lawyers, especially those from the Slav states. Last but not least, references were made to current political events, and were particularly critical of the actions taken by President Piłsudski’s followers and their moral cleansing policy that threatened the principles of judicial sovereignty. The accomplishments of those lawyers' meetings were very significant, especially in the context of the shaping of a new law in Poland in the interwar period.