12 MÓŁKA v. POLAND DECISION the status of local authorities in Northern Ireland, the Commission observed that “insofar as these local authorities have a legislative function it is confined to the making of by-laws applicable within their areas and these powers are rigidly limited by statute and they have no powers to make rules other than in accordance with the powers conferred by Parliament”. The Government also relied on the Commission’s decision in the case of BoothClibborn and Others v. United Kingdom (no. 11391/85, Commission decision of 5 July 1985, DR 43, p. 248) in which the Commission considered that the metropolitan county councils “do not possess an inherent primary rulemaking power and those powers which have been delegated to them are qualified by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and exercised subject to that Parliament’s ultimate control”. The Government submitted further that although local government organs could not be regarded as “legislatures” within the meaning of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, the Commission found this provision to be applicable to the elections to local parliaments in federal States in cases concerning Austrian and German Länder (see X. v. Austria, no. 7008/75, Commission decision of 12 July 1976, DR 6, p. 120, and Timke v. Germany, no. 27311/95, Commission decision of 11 September 1995, DR 82-A, p. 158). Having regard to the above case-law and bearing in mind that Poland is a unitary State (see Article 3 of the Constitution), the Government considered that the organs of local government in Poland did not form part and parcel of legislative power. The Government further underlined the derivative and secondary nature of the rulemaking powers of the local government organs. They referred to Article 95 of the Polish Constitution, which clearly provided that legislative power was exercised by the Sejm and the Senate, and submitted that no other domestic body was vested with competence to enact statutes. Consequently, under the Polish constitutional structure, the organs of local government could not be considered “legislatures” because they could not enact statutes. They also pointed out that, under Article 87 § 2 of the Polish Constitution, local government organs could pass “local laws” (akty prawa miejscowego). Those laws were binding only in the territory of a given municipality, district or a region and could be passed on the basis of and within the limits specified by statute (see Article 94 of the Constitution). It followed, according to the Government, that any rulemaking powers of local government were based on and restricted by statutory regulations. The Government submitted further that, pursuant to Article 163 of the Constitution, local government organs performed public tasks which were not reserved by the Constitution or other statutes to other public authorities. They also argued that the limited scope of the rulemaking powers exercised by the local government councils did not allow them to be considered as “legislatures”. In particular, the scope of the rulemaking