Cardinal laws

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Cardinal laws (Polish: Prawa kardynalne) were enacted during the Repnin Sejm of 1767-1768 in Warsaw, Poland. Officially, they were supposed to ensure the Golden Freedom of the Polish nobility. In fact, they were pushed through legislation which ensured that the political system of the Commonwealth would be ineffective and easy to control by its foreign neighbours and thus they were guaranteed by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great (and by 1775 also by Prussia and Austro-Hungary, with Russian forces - under the command of Prince Nicholas Repnin - present in Poland to ensure their passage.

In particular, the liberum veto, free election, neminem captivabimus, rights to form the confederation and rokosz—in other words, all the important old privileges of the nobility, which made the Commonwealth political system (the Golden Liberty) so ungovernable[1]—were guaranteed as unalterable parts in the cardinal laws.[2]

The cardinal laws were a form of constitution. They were annulled by the Great Sejm of 1788-1792, but in the aftermath of the War in Defence of the Constitution of 1792, they were reintroduced by the Grodno Sejm.