Free Royal Cities Act


The Free Royal Cities Act was an act adopted by the Four-Year Sejm 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 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 for military officers' commissions, public offices; it did not gave them the rights of szlachta, but gave the right for ennoblement; it provided townspeople right for representation in Sejm as advisers in the cities' affairs.