Disempowerment through the Backdoor: The Impact of Populist Parties on the National Parliament in Poland


 Do populist governments disempower parliaments? If so, which strategies do they employ to do it? The empirical analysis here concerns two legislative periods in Poland: T1 2011–2015 (centre-right coalition, populist actors in the opposition) and T2 2015–2018 (populist government). The article traces changes in formal rules regulating scrutiny and law-making but also how these rules were interpreted and exercised. The article addresses the following explanatory factors: position in government, strength of parliamentary formal provisions and the readiness of political actors to revise institutional competences. The article shows that although changes to formal parliamentary powers were minor, disempowerment of the legislative was profound. The outcome has actually been achieved through radical changes in parliamentary practices regarding both law-making and scrutiny.


Introduction
Do populist governments disempower national parliaments? If so, how profound is the effect and which strategies are employed to do it? Looking at the literature that discusses the impact of populist parties on national parliaments, we will not find a conclusive answer. Although the literature on populism has grown considerably over recent years (Norris, 2005;Mudde, 2007;Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2012;Kriesi and Pappas, 2015), no comparative study has so far systematically examined the extent to which populist parties are a threat or a corrective for parliamentary democracy. On the one hand, the literature focusing on the impact of populist parties on West European democracies has found little evidence for a # The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
profound institutional change (Müller, 2019;Taggart, 2019). Instead, it observes that the presence of populist parties in government may trigger a change in informal practices, but their impact on the position of the legislature is often inconclusive (see the discussion in Miklin in this volume). On the other hand, the literature focusing on East European states demonstrates that populist parties are, in fact, quite prone to eroding democratic principles and institutions within their states (Sadurski, 2018;Bie n-Kacała, 2019, 2020;Müller, 2019). The observed divergence, therefore, suggests that explanatory variables at the domestic level may play a decisive role in explaining the extent and direction of the impact of populists on parliaments. As Rummens (2019) observed, populist parties can be both a threat and a corrective to liberal democracy.
This article aims in contributing to the debate by studying the impact of a populist executive on formal and informal powers of the Polish parliament. The goal of this contribution is to identify and test a set of explanatory factors that might trigger parliamentary disempowerment, empowerment or no change. This article poses the following research question: Has the presence of populist actors in the government led to an erosion, strengthening or no change in the (in)formal powers of the Polish legislature? The article's empirical evidence focuses on two core functions of national parliaments: law-making and scrutiny. To answer the question, the article compares parliamentary formal powers and informal practice regarding law-making and scrutiny in two legislative periods: 2011-2015 (centre-right coalition, populists in opposition) and 2015-2018 (populist government).
Because populism entered Polish politics as early as the 2000s, there is a large body of literature dealing with the topic. Many studies exist discussing the origin and nature of East European populism (Stanley, 2019), Polish populism (Markowski, 2004;Jasiewicz, 2008;Pankowski, 2010), their electoral programmes, their attitudes towards European integration (Pacze sniak, 2010), the phenomenon of populist discourse in Poland (Przyłe R cki, 2012), the impact of populist parties on the media in general (Ste R pi nska, 2020) and also the phenomenon of populism in the Catholic media (Buzalka, 2008). Recently, the literature has increasingly focused on populism and illiberal backsliding in Poland (Sadurski, 2018) and, more specifically, on the conflict between Poland and the EU regarding violation of the rule of law principle (Blauberger and Kelemen, 2017;Closa, 2019).
Yet, despite the quickly growing literature dealing with populism in Poland, a gap in the literature exists regarding the impact of populist governments on parliamentary formal and informal powers. Furthermore, in the Polish context, executive-legislative relations have been a domain of constitutionalists, not political scientists. Consequently, the subject has not been sufficiently studied within a political science explanatory framework.
Regarding the article's major findings, it demonstrates that during the 2015-2019 legislative period, the formal and informal capacities of parliament to exercise scrutiny and law-making were constrained. Despite minor revisions to formal parliamentary powers stipulated in the Codes of Conduct, disempowerment of the legislative was profound. In particular, such disempowerment has not been achieved through systematic and deep revisions of parliamentary formal powers (as in Hungary) but by means of breaches of the constitution and the parliamentary code. Regarding the article's structure, it begins with a presentation of the theoretical framework and methodological approach and then discusses the empirical findings. The closing session summarises the findings and proposes directions for further research.
Regarding terminology and conceptual issues, the article aims at explaining the impact of populist parties in government on the powers of national parliaments. It therefore does not engage with the debate concerning conceptual issues, such as the definition of populism. Rather, it adopts a minimalist definition of populism (Müller, 2019), which stresses two basic attributes of populism, namely, anti-pluralism and anti-elitism. In the empirical dimension, the special issue as a whole identifies populist actors using the TIMBRO index (see the Introduction section to the special issue for more details on conceptual issues).

Theoretical framework of the study
What are the theory-driven expectations regarding the impact of populist parties in government on national parliaments? Which strategies are populist parties likely to employ? According to the literature, we should not automatically assume that populist-driven change would disempower national parliaments (see the Introduction section to the special issue). Drawing on the minimalist definition of populism (Müller, 2019), it can be expected that the two core element, namely anti-elitism and anti-pluralism, would frame populist governments' activity. Yet, these two core features could both facilitate the disempowerment of parliaments and also foster the representative function of parliaments by establishing a stronger link to the electorate (see Miklin in this volume). Finally, as this contribution demonstrates, populist actors do not operate in a vacuum. We should therefore consider explanatory variables that are related to the environment in which a specific populist government operates.
The first expectation stipulated by this special issue was that the impact of populist parties would be stronger when they constitute a major force in the government. If a party forms a government as a major or exclusive force, it is relatively unconstrained in its activities.
Looking at the Polish case specifically, in the period of T1 (seventh legislative period, [2011][2012][2013][2014][2015], the government was composed of two mainstream parties: Against this background, it can be expected that in the Polish case, changes observed between T1 and T2 would be of a more substantial nature than in states where populist parties constitute a junior coalition partner. For instance, it can be expected that any changes would concern not only informal practices within the existing rules but also formal rules regulated by secondary legislation. The second explanatory factor concerns the existing domestic legal framework and the constitutional division of powers (Sadurski, 2018;Garlicki, 2019) that set 'the formal rules of the game' in each state. For national parliaments, the most important institutional aspect here concerns their formal and informal strengths vis-à-vis the executive. The assumption is that the stronger the formal powers of the parliament vis-à-vis the government, the more likely it is to resist changes and, eventually, disempowerment.
In the Polish bicameral system, it is the lower chamber, Sejm, which takes the lead in the law-making process (Article 95 of the constitution). The constitution from 1997 (Article 95) also stipulates that scrutiny, understood as control of the government, is a domain of Sejm, not Senat. The third function, appointing, 1 has not been stipulated in the constitution. Law-making and scrutiny are therefore regarded as the most important parliamentary functions in the Polish constitutional system.
There is a richness of literature on East Central European (ECE) states which shows that executive-legislative relations differ significantly in that group of states (Bałaban, 2011;Kopecky, 2001;Zubek, 2011;Goetz and Zubek, 2004). For instance, in comparison to ECE states, and particularly the Czech parliament, the Polish legislative is relatively weak vis-à-vis the executive (Zubek, 2011). The constitution dispersed legislative powers among the two chambers of the parliament (Sejm and Senat), the president (by granting him a strong veto to legislative projects approved by the parliament) as well as the public (by introducing binding referenda) (Zubek, 2011). The Constitutional Tribunal (CT) acquired a central role in correcting unconstitutional legislation approved by the parliament.
A particular feature in Poland is a constitution allowing executive-legislative relations to undergo revision by a simple majority as the executive-legislative relation is predominantly regulated by secondary legislation (standing orders from the Sejm and Senat 2 ). In contrast, in states where executive-legislative relations 1 Funkcja kreacyjna 2 Regulamin Sejmu i Regulamin Senatu Disempowerment through the Backdoor are stipulated at the constitutional level, changes are more difficult because they require a special majority. Another relevant aspect concerns emergency legislation. Emergency legislation allows limiting the role of national parliaments in the legislative process to the advantage of the executive. While in some states emergency legislation practically does not exist (Czech Republic), in other states, it is codified and has been frequently applied (Poland, Italy and Spain).
In Poland, the key institution to shape the executive-legislative relation is the speaker. The speaker has far-reaching powers to influence the legislative and scrutiny process within both chambers of the parliament. For instance, the speaker has the power to delay or accelerate bills but also to decide on the plenary agenda (Article 173 of the Polish constitution). There are studies which have demonstrated that the Polish institutional design grants the executive the de facto agenda-setting power, being the capacity to introduce a legislative project to debate (Zubek, 2011). In comparison to other ECE states, Polish opposition parties have very weak competences in this respect (Zubek, 2011), predominantly due to the strong position of the speaker. The reason behind the empowerment of the speaker is the Polish parliamentary experience of the early 90s. Parliament then was extremely fragmented, which made the decision-making process very difficult, also regarding procedural matters. A strong speaker was intended to bring more coherence to parliamentary work by assuming the role of a neutral arbiter among parliamentary parties.
The third explanatory factor identified in the special issue has been the level of consolidation of parliamentary institutions and processes. The comparative literature indicates very clearly that younger democracies are more likely to change existing power structures than older democracies .
The literature demonstrates that a relatively weak commitment to formal rules and procedures could be observed throughout the whole post-transition period in Poland (Zubek, 2011;Garlicki, 2019). Namely, it has not been an exclusive feature of populist actors.

Methodological approach and research design
The goal of the analysis is to examine how the presence of populist actors in the government affected parliamentary practices (behaviour) within legal frameworks but also how formal frameworks changed.
Regarding the method employed, this study draws on qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The method is very popular in legislative studies and has been applied to study party ideology, parliamentary scrutiny, law-making and deliberation, as well as government positioning on different policies (Budge et al., 2001;Laver et al. 2003;Slapin and Proksch, 2008). The common assumption is that a researcher can infer crucial information regarding the functioning of parliaments and parliamentary parties by analysing formal records of parliaments, parliamentarians, parliamentary parties or committees. The approach has been helpful to map and compare different grades of (dis)empowerment of national parliaments, looking at limitations concerning the deliberation process, voting and the application of omnibus legislation (Maatsch, 2017, p. 38).
Regarding the data, the empirical inference was based on three different types of sources: (i) formal legal changes regarding parliamentary rules and procedures, 3 (ii) the archive of the Polish parliament presenting data concerning parliamentary activity in the past legislative periods (i.e. number of legislative projects proposed by different institutions, number of public hearings/consultations, etc.) and (iii) the database of the Civic Legislative Forum, compiled by an expert group of the Stefan Batory Foundation, an independent think-tank monitoring the quality of Polish democracy in different aspects.
Regarding the first source of inference, the analysis focused on revisions in legislation concerning competences of parliaments or executive-legislative relations. The second source of inference, the Polish parliament archive, has been employed in order to gather descriptive statistics regarding parliamentary activity. These statistics are regularly published and are publicly accessible. For instance, the data regarding the number of questions, statements, duration of deliberation, the number of MPs or governmental bills have been obtained from that source. While the archive does not provide descriptive statistics regarding such practices as de facto fast-track procedures, such information could be inferred from the documents concerning the legislative process of each bill. By including these documents, it could be established that under PIS, plenary deliberation has been very frequently scheduled during late night hours. Finally, more nuanced information regarding hidden bills has been obtained from the database of the Stefan Batory Foundation.

Empirical analysis
To what extent have law-making and scrutiny changed between T1 and T2? In contrast to Hungary, in Poland, there was no profound reform of the constitution or secondary legislation regulating interinstitutional relations and their codes of conduct. Significantly, the PIS government did not acquire a constitutional majority during the eighth legislative period. The government did not thoroughly reform secondary legislation regulating the functioning of the parliament, although it had the necessary majority to do it. Instead, during the 2015-2019 legislative period, the PIS party opted more to reach its aims by disregarding and breaching the constitution and secondary legislation.

Legislative function
This section examines changes between the legislative process during the seventh and eighth legislative period. Comparing the number of sessions in Sejm as well as the general time devoted to the legislative process during T1 and T2, we can observe that the number of approved bills increased from 752 to 923 (the number of resolutions, declarations, etc. also increased from 286 to 390), whereas the number of sessions in Sejm and the time devoted to the legislative process considerably decreased (see Table 1 for comparison). In particular, during the seventh legislative period, there were 102 sessions, which altogether took 287 days, whereas during the eighth legislative period, there were 86 Sejm sessions for 235 days. Consequently, during T2, the number of approved bills and resolutions increased in relation to T1. However, parliamentary deliberation was significantly constrained.

Emergency legislation
The basic tool to accelerate the legislative process and constrain the input from the parliament is emergency legislation which is codified under different names in almost all democratic states. Application of emergency legislation indicates to what extent the executive dominates the legislative process. The underlying feature of emergency legislation is that it allows the government to speed up the legislative process and minimize political contestation by either constraining or even eliminating the parliamentary debate and/or vote. Good practice regarding emergency legislation assumes that it can be employed in cases of unforeseen emergency (such as natural disasters), but not for key public policies or the constitution. Furthermore, good practice of emergency legislation requires a sunset clause that stipulates clearly when the application of such measures end (Cormacain, 2020). The goal is to separate emergency legislation from ordinary legislation. The last time emergency legislation has been employed in Europe on a broad-scale basis was during the financial crisis and in the current COVID-19 pandemic (Maatsch, 2017;Cormacain, 2020). In Poland, there is a fast-track procedure codified in the constitution and secondary legislation (tryb pilny) that considerably shortens parliamentary deliberation. Article 123 of the constitution stipulates that only legislative projects proposed by the government can be fast-tracked. By the same token, legislative projects proposed by MPs, the president or citizens cannot be fast-tracked. The constitution stipulates that the budget law or revisions to the constitution cannot be fact-tracked to ensure they receive full consideration.
Comparing the legislative periods of 2011-2015 and 2015-2019, we can see that the general speed and the number of legislative projects rapidly increased. Between 2015 and 2019, there were 923 bills approved, whereas during 2011-2015, there were 752 bills approved (see Table 1). More specifically, in the first six months of the eighth legislative period (2015-2019), Sejm approved 93 bills; in the same time period of the seventh legislative period, there were only 43 bills. During the first year of the eighth legislative period, an average legislative project was processed in 87 days-counting from publishing of the bill to its signing by the president. During the first four months of the eighth legislative period, a legislative project was processed, on average, within just 19 days.
Drawing on formal rules stipulated in the standing orders, it takes at least 30 days to process an ordinary bill in both chambers of the parliament. In particular, the standing orders stipulate the minimum time that MPs should have to familiarise themselves with the legislative project at each stage (reading) of the legislative process. Furthermore, Article 113 of the constitution also stresses that it is important for MPs to have access to relevant documents. With the speed of the legislative process during the eighth legislative period, all these conditions were not sufficiently met in legislative practice.
While the PIS party managed to accelerate the legislative process considerably, the bills were formally not proposed as fast-track legislative projects. An example of such practice concerns the reform of the CT, which had been enacted after seven days of deliberation. Looking at bills debated during the first four months of the eighth legislative period, it is clear that not only governmental bills were accelerated but also bills proposed by MPs, which does not conform to the constitutional provisions.
Consequently, the usual timing of parliamentary sessions also changed. In particular, during the eighth legislative period, late night sessions taking place until early in the morning became a regular practice. Although the rules of procedure do not set any limits regarding the working hours of the parliament, the timing of deliberation is believed to discourage parliamentarians' active involvement in the deliberation process.

Transparency and inclusiveness of the legislative process
The extreme fast-tracking of legislation also had an impact on the transparency of the legislative process, particularly at the initial stage of the legislative process. More specifically, the government failed to announce the various times that it began working on a specific legislative project. 'Hidden bills' are legislative projects which are not presented to the public before they enter plenary discussion. When the government initiates work on a specific legislative project, it should be announced in a register of legislative projects. 4 The publication should allow stakeholders and the public to obtain information on the project so that they can provide input through various forms of consultations. An exemption concerns legislative projects which have been officially fast-tracked. Yet, as established, during the eighth legislative period, many bills were processed as fast-track bills although they were not officially proposed as a fast-track legislative project. While in the first three years of the eighth legislative period, there were less than 10 hidden bills each year, the number reached 21 during the fourth year of the eighth legislative period. 5 It should be observed here that hidden bills have been observed before, but they remained an exception. Yet, during the eighth legislative period, the practice definitely became more systematic.
Another important aspect of the legislative process is its inclusiveness vis-àvis, the opposition and stakeholders, namely representatives of nongovernmental organisations and the public. Comparing the seventh and eighth legislative period, we can see that the number of public hearings radically decreased from ten to three 6 . Basically, the PIS government saw public hearings as an 'additional hurdle' that unnecessarily prolonged the legislative process. Yet, this is not to say that the Polish opposition parties were particularly keen on public hearings. Rather, as Goetz and Zubek observed (2007), the PO-PSL coalition did not see much value in the process and considered consultations as a very time-consuming activity.
In the Polish parliament, there are also other practices that allow the executive to accelerate the legislative process. In particular, there is a practice of proposing governmental legislative projects as MP's bills. In contrast to cabinet bills, legislative projects proposed by individual MPs are exempted from consultations. The 4 Wykaz Prac Legislacyjnych i Programowych Rady Ministró w or Rza˛dowy Proces Legislacyjny. 5 Skrywane projekty ustaw. XII Komunikat Obywatelskiego Forum Legislacji o jako sci procesu legislacyjnego, accessed at <https://www.batory.org.pl/informacje_prasowe/skrywane-projekty-ustaw-xiikomunikat-obywatelskiego-forum-legislacji/> 30 September 2010. 6 Ustawa w 2 godziny 20 minut. XIII Komunikat Obywatelskiego Forum Legislacji, accessed at <https://www.batory.org.pl/upload/files/Programy%20operacyjne/Forum%20Idei/Komunikat_2019-1.pdf> on 30 September 2020. goal is to make sure that those who are most affected by the legislative project are given an opportunity to voice their opinion on the project (or propose changes) before it is approved. Consultations therefore foster the democratic legitimacy of the law-making process but, at the same time, extend the legislative process over time. In this respect, data concerning the seventh and eighth legislative period demonstrates an interesting trend. During the first two years of the eighth legislative period, the share of MP's bills was particularly high, reaching on average almost 30 per cent of all approved bills. During this period, the government focused on reforming the judiciary; a 'quick path' of MP's bills was therefore employed in order to accelerate the legislative process in a priority area of the government. However, during the last two years of the eighth legislative period, the practice declined. The legislative database of the Stefan Batory Foundation demonstrates that the practice was already evident in the Polish parliament during the seventh legislative period. Specifically, during the eighth legislative period, there were 164 MP's bills out of 923 bills in total; during the seventh legislative period, there were 159 bills out of 752, yet, during the sixth legislative period there were only 116 MP's bills out of 952 bills in total. 7 The trend demonstrates that not all practices aiming at empowering the executive at the expense of the legislature can be attributed to populist parties. As in the Italian parliament (see Fasone in this volume), populist parties can have a catalysing effect regarding various negative practices which were already in place before.

Parliamentary control
Parliamentary control comprises of a broad spectrum of instruments available to parliamentarians and parliamentary institutions to monitor legislative and nonlegislative activity in a state. In each state, there are various possibilities for parliamentarians to exercise ex ante and ex post oversight via oral and written questions. In Poland, procedures regulating parliamentary control are codified both in the constitution and in secondary legislation (Article 95.2 of the constitution, standing order of Sejm and Senat).

Questions and statements
In the Polish parliament, scrutiny and oversight are predominantly within the competence of the lower chamber, the Sejm. Regarding scrutiny, the statistics demonstrate a change regarding questions on current issues, MP's statements but also written questions. More specifically, questions on current issues declined from 975 during T1 to 835 during T2. Furthermore, we can observe an even more radical decline regarding MP's 7 The archive of the seventh and eighth legislative period, accessed at <http://www.sejm.gov.pl/ Sejm9.nsf/page.xsp/archiwum> on 14 July 2020. statements, namely from 3552 to 1806 (see Table 1). The descriptive statistics regarding written questions demonstrate that during the seventh legislative period, eight questions out of approximately 34,000 were not answered by the government. During the eighth legislative period, these were already 287 questions that were not answered. In most cases, the delay in answering particular question took over 500 days. In sum, the general descriptive data indicate that the capacity of the legislature to control the executive has considerably weakened.
4.2.2. The speaker and disciplinary measures Scrutiny is the major task of the opposition. In the Polish parliament, the role of the opposition has been weak in that respect and was already so prior to the PIS-party assuming power. As an opposition party, PIS systematically complained about the limited capacity of the opposition to exercise effective scrutiny and oversight. In the seventh legislative period, the PIS party, as the leader of the opposition, felt negatively affected by the trend. For this reason, they championed a legislative project called the 'democratic package', which aimed at strengthening the scrutiny powers of opposition parties. Yet, the project was outvoted during the seventh legislative period. The PIS party did not pursue it when it formed a government during the eighth legislative period.
The weakness of the opposition can be attributed to the strength of the speaker. In fact, it is the speaker who is in charge of the legislative and scrutiny process. Yet, with time, the office of the speaker was 'captured' by ruling party(ies) who have the necessary majority to nominate the speaker. Eventually, during the early 2000s, the speaker ceased to exercise the role of a neutral arbiter and instead became an ally (or a hostage) of his party. For instance, during the 2011-2015 legislative period, the opposition coined a term 'freezer' (zamra_ zalka) to describe an institutional practice of 'freezing' (delaying) all legislative proposals that were not proposed by the cabinet or MPs from the ruling parties.
During the eighth legislative period, the power of the national parliament to control the executive further weakened. Regarding formal rules, the most significant change concerned the 2018 reform of standing orders of the Sejm and Senat. 8 The reform facilitated penalizing MPs by the speaker. In particular, if MPs undermined with their behaviour the 'institutional dignity' of the parliament, the speaker could punish them with financial fines. While the option of financial fines had been in the standing orders since the early 2000s, the practice had been to employ financial fines as a measure of the 'last resort'. Consequently, financial fines were rare and, secondly, they were preceded by other milder measures, such as written notes by the speaker.
The bill allowed the speaker to impose financial fines up to 50 per cent of MP's salary or 100 per cent of MP's allowance for the period of three months. Financial fines were no longer imposed as a measure of the last resort. Instead, the speaker was granted the power to impose financial fines without any preceding measures. The law allowed the speaker to determine whether a given behaviour or act of speech undermined the chamber's institutional dignity. By the same token, the law promoted a very discretionary mechanism. As a result, the number of financial fines increased from 3 to 12 during the eighth legislative period. The speaker was also keen to impose maximum fines. The parliamentary practice of the eighth legislative period demonstrated that the role of the measure was to supress the opposition rather than enhance parliament's institutional dignity. Financial fines were namely imposed in cases of strong governmentopposition conflict. In particular, all 12 financial fines were imposed on members of the opposition parties.
The reform of the standing orders extended the speaker's powers also in other respects. In particular, the reform allowed the speaker and the presidium (also controlled by the ruling majority) to select MP's questions but also to decide on the order in which the questions should be posed if the first reading of the legislative project already taken place in the plenary. Given that there is a limit of questions pro session, the entitlement to pre-select questions severely disempowered the parliament in holding the executive accountable.

The puzzling lack of profound formal change
The empirical findings presented in the prior subsection appear puzzling for two different reasons. First, why was the government able to undermine or reinterpret the existing rules so easily? Secondly, why has the government not changed the formal rules more extensively, following the example of Hungary (see Ilonszki and Vajda in this special issue)?
To begin with the first puzzle, the article demonstrates that during the eighth legislative period, unquestionable breaches of procedural correctness in the lawmaking process became very common in Poland. One of the most controversial cases was the approval of the budget law in December 2016. The law was approved outside the plenary room, in the absence of opposition parties and without generating a name-list with the vote outcome.
As the literature demonstrates, procedural correctness has been breached in Poland before (Zubek, 2011). Yet, the CT worked quite effectively to correct unconstitutional legislation (Sadurski, 2018;Garlicki, 2019). What was new during the eighth legislative period was that the breaches were no longer corrected. Assuming power in 2015, the PIS government had already experience of governing during 2005-2007. In that period, the governing coalition adopted unconstitutional legislation but the CT blocked it (Sadurski, 2018, pp. 50-55). Having assumed power in 2015, the PIS government therefore engaged very intensively in disempowering the CT so that the institution would not block PIS government legislation. The 'capturing' of the CT became a priority project during the first months of the eighth legislative period. The process was initiated with appointments of judges loyal to the party (and, hence, likely to turn a blind eye on legislation not conforming to the constitution) and followed by revisions of the institutional competences of the CT (Sadurski, 2018, pp. 58-96). In the course of the PIS activity, the CT lost its core capacity to correct unconstitutional legislation. The second factor that helped the PIS party to disregard and breach the constitution was the election of the PIS candidate, Andrzej Duda, as a president of Poland. In the legislative process, the president plays an important role because s/he has the power to veto legislation approved by the parliament. Although the lower chamber can overrun the presidential veto, Sejm needs a special majority to do so. Consequently, disempowerment of the CT and appointment of a PIS candidate for the office of president allowed the PIS government to profoundly change the functioning of the Polish parliament without radically reforming its rules of procedure or the constitution.
Regarding the second puzzle, it may indeed appear surprising that the PIS government has not opted to reform the formal rules regulating the powers of the legislative as well as the relation between the executive and the legislative. In Hungary, the government of Victor Orban reformed both the rules of procedures and the constitution. PIS won the parliamentary elections but failed to reach a constitutional majority. As a consequence, the party could pursue reforms of secondary legislation (such as parliamentary rules of procedure) but not the constitution. Yet, PIS has only introduced very minor revisions to the rules of procedures. Why? As Zubek observed, in East Central European parliaments, including Poland, '(formal) procedures are the script, not the play' (Zubek, 2011, p. 189). In particular, in Poland, formal institutional procedures do not seem to be set in stone. A key feature of the Polish parliamentary democracy has been a persistently weak commitment to formal rules and procedures.

Discussion and conclusions
Following the theoretical framework of the special issue, this article discusses the impact of three explanatory factors: populists' position in the government (major force versus junior partner), constitutional strength of the parliament as well as the commitment of decision-makers to existing formal institutional rules.
Regarding the Polish case, it was expected that forming the government as a sole force, combined with weak constitutional prerogatives of the parliament as well as the weak commitment of Polish political actors to formal rules of procedure would facilitate a profound change of parliamentary formal rules and practices. The findings have confirmed theory-driven expectations only to some extent. Against expectations, we have not observed a systematic reform of formal parliamentary competences even though the government enjoyed the necessary majority to follow that path. A constitutional change has remained beyond the government's reach as it has not acquired the necessary majority. And yet, despite minor revisions of formal parliamentary competences, the disempowerment of the legislative has been profound.
The PIS party has been predominantly interested in accelerating the speed of the legislative process but also weakening the opposition's capacity to hold the government accountable. In contrast to Hungary, the governing party has not achieved that aim by means of a systematic and deep revision of the constitution or secondary legislation regulating parliamentary procedures and norms. Rather, in Poland, the disempowerment of the parliament has been predominantly achieved through breaches of the constitution and the parliamentary code of conduct. Two elements facilitated that process: the unprecedented 'capturing' of the CT by the government which prevented the CT from correcting unconstitutional legislation; and the PIS candidate winning the office of president, and not using his prerogative to veto legislative projects proposed by his party. More specifically, the eighth legislative period saw an unprecedented (to a large extent unconstitutional) rise in the fast-track procedure. Due to the practice of hidden bills and the reluctance to consult legislative projects with stakeholders, the legislative process became less transparent and less inclusive. Regarding scrutiny, while the number of approved bills and resolutions increased, the time envisaged for parliamentary deliberation and control decreased. Moreover, the extension of the speaker's formal powers (discretionary procedure of penalties and entitlement to pre-select oral questions) severely constrained the opposition's capacity to hold the government accountable.
On one hand, the Polish case demonstrates that the rise of populist actors to power has contributed to a very profound disempowerment of the legislative, comparable only with the case of Hungary. On the other hand, the empirical analysis of the T1 and T2 periods has demonstrated that certain negative practices could be observed already before PIS assumed power. This finding generates further questions regarding the proper framework to analyse the Polish case. Given that the observed changes concern the DNA of liberal democracy, perhaps the right framework is not the 'populist rise' but rather the (uncompleted) consolidation of democracy.
parliaments' organised on 5-6 December 2019 at the Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies for their insightful comments and stimulating discussion. The author would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.