The position of the sovereign in the provisions of the Constitution of 3 May 1791 against the background of the French Constitution of 3 September 1791 and the Constitutional Charter of 4 June 1814

Abstract

Three different monarchical systems emerge from the Constitution. From constitutional monarchy based on the English model, through monarchy with some features of a republic, to a monarchy with the principle of unity of state power. The acts show that the Polish king was situated between a monarch dominated by the legislature and a sovereign monarch. He was not a figurehead. The introduction into the constitution of the principles of the sovereignty of the nation and the tripartite division of power meant that the organs of the state, and the king was one of them, performed only such activities as were allowed by the constitution. This is what the May and French Constitutions of 1791 stated. The Constitutional Charter of 1814 returned to the principle of unity of power. The monarch exercised not only the powers enumerated in the Charter, but also those not reserved to other bodies. The provisions of the Charter proved attractive to monarchies seeking a transition from enlightened absolutism to a constitutional parliamentary monarchy.