A ceremonial session of the House was held on Monday, 28 November, on the 100th anniversary of the first session of the Senate of the Second Republic. The anniversary ceremony was attended by President Andrzej Duda, Marshal of the Sejm Elżbieta Witek, Marshal of the Senate Tomasz Grodzki together with the Deputy Marshals. Previous presidents, prime ministers and parliamentarians were also present.

Before the solemn session, the President of Poland laid flowers in front of a plaque commemorating the senators of the Second Republic who were murdered, killed, missing, or died during World War II and the post-war period of repression.

The inaugural session of the Senate of the First Term on 28 November 1922 was a great celebration of the reborn Republic of Poland, an independent, emerging, modern, democratic state,” said President Duda to the people gathered in the Senate Assembly Hall. He recalled that the Senate was, above all, an important sign of the continuity of Polish statehood. Its existence and activities consolidated the indigenous constitutional tradition, according to which the highest power in the state is dispersed and exercised by several bodies that mutually control each other and balance each other’s influence.

Today, the Senate is a systemic institution that has become established and stabilises the Polish political system. It has a significant legislative and political output, without which the present shape of our systemic realities would probably be markedly different,’ the President stressed.

Senate Speaker Tomasz Grodzki recalled that when Poland was wiped off the map of Europe, the Senate disappeared too. When Poland was reborn, the Senate was reborn along with it.

“The Senate is closely associated with the best pages in Poland’s history. Its restoration in 1989 in the first truly free elections marked Poland’s return to the family of democratic and sovereign states,” said Tomasz Grodzki.

Adrian Andrzejewski