XVIII amžiaus studijos / The Eighteenth Century Studies

Recently, in historiography, the Constitution of 3 May 1791 is increasingly viewed not only as the quintessence of the reforms carried out in the late eighteenth century in the Commonwealth of Both Nations but also as the embodiment of the most advanced state and society reformations by the Four-Year Sejm (1788–1792). In the context of the development of parliamentarism in the late-eighteenth-century Republic, the article reviews the directions and nature of one of the most important reforms of the legislative power in the tripartite separation of powers concept, which is fixed in the Constitution of 3 May 1791. Reforms by the Four-Year Sejm, which established significant changes in the parliamentary life of the Republic, acquired an even more conceptual expression in the Constitution of 3 May, which made it possible to highlight the boundaries of the legislative power.