Jacek Kurczewski

The Bill of Rights and the Emerging Democracies

The political transformation and constitution-building process in East Central Europe concerned not only the simple identification or listing of rights, but, more importantly, the development of institutions that would adequately safeguard and implement constitutional freedoms and rights. This essay will not attempt an exhaustive review of all of the efforts made in the post-communist period to fulfill this expectation, but will point to some elements in the process of institutionalizing the protection of rights in order to illustrate the problems faced by these developing democracies and the accomplishments they have realized.