Free Royal Cities Act
The Free Royal Cities Act (full Polish title: Miasta Nasze Królewskie wolne w państwach Rzeczypospolitej; English: "Our Free Royal Cities in the States of the Commonwealth", or the Law on the Cities, Prawo o miastach) was an act adopted by the Four-Year Sejm (1788–92) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on April 18, 1791, in the run-up to the adoption of the Constitution of May 3, 1791. The Act was subsequently incorporated in extenso into the Constitution by reference in its Article III.
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The Act granted to the Commonwealth's townspeople of the royal cities personal security, the right to acquire landed property, and eligibility for military officers' commissions, public offices; it did not gave them the rights of szlachta (nobles), but gave the right for ennoblement; it provided townspeople right for representation in Sejm as advisers in the cities' affairs.[1]
See also
Notes
- The Third of May Constitution Archived June 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
References
- Joseph Kasparek, The Constitutions of Poland and of the United States: Kinships and Genealogy, Miami, American Institute of Polish Culture, 1980, pp. 31–33.
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