Legal Act as the Subject of Mythologization: Remarks on the Reception of the JUST Act of 2017 in Poland

Abstract

The article presents a legal act as a potential subject of mythologization. The tools derived from the studies on political myth were used to describe a phenomenon that strictly belongs to the political and legal reality – the American JUST Act of 2017, which in recent years has caused many controversies in Polish public debate. While using the theoretical methods of the most notable researchers of the political myth, such as R. Barthes or E. Cassirer, it has been shown that legal acts, as well as their reception and interpretation, are not always based on rational forms of cognition. They can also be affected by a political myth and a mythical form of cognition, which is depicted in this study by means of methodology implemented from the studies on political myth. The article formulates interesting comments that may be useful for a better understanding of the phenomena on the border of Polish jurisprudence, political science and mythology.