The Constitutionalizing of Exceptional Powers as a Guarantee of Rights? The Example of East European Democracies at the End of the Twentieth Century

The article is devoted to the problem of the constitutionalizing of extraordinary powers. Based on the constitutions of the post-communist states of Eastern Europe, the author analyzes the techniques used by their drafters to qualify and classify exceptional situations, as well as the definition of extraordinary powers exercised in such situations by authorities and officials. The limits of the application of these techniques are revealed due to both the peculiarities of exceptional situations, their complex and unpredictable nature, and the need to establish normative equality between extraordinary powers and fundamental human rights. The article examines the aporias associated with the attempts of the drafters of the Eastern European constitutions of the late twentieth century to define an exceptional situation and its most common varieties (martial law, state of siege, state of emergency).