Everything about Liberum Veto totally explained
Liberum veto (
Latin:
I freely forbid) was a parliamentary device in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that allowed any
deputy to a
Sejm to force an immediate end to the current session and nullify all legislation already passed at it.
This rule evolved from a
unanimity principle (unanimous consent), and the latter from the federative character of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was essentially a
federation of countries. Each deputy to a Sejm was elected at a local
regional sejm (
sejmik) and represented the entire region. He thus assumed responsibility to his
sejmik for all decisions taken at the Sejm. A decision taken by a majority against the will of a minority (even if only a single
sejmik) was considered a violation of the principle of political equality.
It is commonly, and erroneously, believed that a Sejm was first disrupted by means of
liberum veto by a
Trakai deputy,
Władysław Siciński, in 1652. In reality, however, he only vetoed the continuation of the Sejm's deliberations beyond the statutory time limit. It was only in 1669, in
Kraków, that a Sejm was prematurely disrupted on the strength of the
liberum veto, by the
Kiev deputy,
Adam Olizar.
In the first half of the
18th century, it became increasingly common for Sejm sessions to be broken up by
liberum veto, as the Commonwealth's neighbours — chiefly
Russia and
Prussia — found this a useful tool to frustrate attempts at reforming and strengthening the Commonwealth. The latter deteriorated from a European power into a state of anarchy.
1764
After 1764 the
liberum veto practically went out of use: the principle of unanimity didn't bind "
confederated sejms," and so deputies formed a "confederation" (Polish:
konfederacja) at the beginning of a session in order to prevent its disruption by
liberum veto.
The
liberum veto was abolished by the
May 3rd, 1791, Constitution (adopted by a
confederated sejm), which permanently established the principle of majority rule.
The achievements of that
constitution, however — claimed to be Europe's first modern codified constitution — were undone by another
confederated sejm, meeting at
Grodno in 1793. That Sejm, under duress from Russia and Prussia, ratified the penultimate,
Second Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
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