The Free Royal Cities Act (Polish: Miasta Nasze Królewskie wolne w państwach Rzeczypospolitej, lit. 'Our Free Royal Cities in the States of the Commonwealth'), also known as the Law on the Cities (Polish: Prawo o miastach), was an act adopted by the Four-Year Sejm (1788–1792) 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.
The Act granted to the Commonwealth's townspeople of the royal cities personal security, the right to acquire landed property and eligibility to military officers' commissions and public offices, It did not give them the rights of szlachta (nobility) but allow the possibility for ennoblement. It also provided townspeople the right of representation in the Sejm as advisers in the cities' affairs.[1]
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ The Third of May Constitution Archived June 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
References
edit- 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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