How political infighting paralysed Poland's constitutional court

For many years, the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland served as an effective mechanism for checking government power.

Over the past decade, however, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has largely lost its legitimacy and with it, its ability to shape Polish law. Today, public opinion no longer waits with bated breath for its rulings, as it did in the 1990s and 2000s.

Read more about the origins of the crisis, the scandals surrounding the court and whether the situation may change anytime soon in the article by Polish journalist and Onet.pl editor Marcin Terlik: A joint effort by government and opposition: how politicians destroyed Poland's Constitutional Tribunal.

To untangle the roots of the crisis, one has to go back to the autumn of 2015.

At the time, the Civic Platform party, then in power, expected to lose the upcoming elections to its rivals from Law and Justice (PiS).

In an attempt to protect its influence, Civic Platform amended the law on the Constitutional Tribunal without broad consultations, allowing it to appoint successors in advance for judges whose terms were set to expire after the October elections.

As expected, Law and Justice won the elections in October 2015. The party then changed the law governing the Constitutional Tribunal and passed a resolution annulling the recent appointment of five judges. It replaced them with its own nominees.

That marked the beginning of the "war over the Constitutional Tribunal".

President Andrzej Duda swore in the five newly appointed Constitutional Tribunal judges, selected by parliament, during the night of 3 December 2015.

The very next day, the Tribunal – still composed largely of judges appointed before the political shift – issued a compromise ruling. It found that Civic Platform had lawfully appointed three of the five judges. Under that ruling, Law and Justice was entitled to fill only two vacancies.

But the party led by Jarosław Kaczyński refused to recognise the verdict, and the government it formed began withholding publication of the Tribunal’s decisions.

Law and Justice proceeded to pass one law after another aimed at reshaping the system according to its own vision, while the Constitutional Tribunal repeatedly struck them down.

The standoff continued until the end of 2016, when Julia Przyłębska became head of the Tribunal. She was widely seen as loyal to Kaczyński’s party.

Over time, Law and Justice filled vacancies on the court with its own candidates.

The ruling majority even began using the Constitutional Tribunal to push through unpopular changes that it was reluctant to put to a vote in the Sejm.

Many expected the turning point to come after the 2023 parliamentary elections when Kaczyński lost power.

However, the new government of Donald Tusk only deepened the crisis by refusing to recognise the Tribunal’s rulings and declining to publish them. The government argued that "duplicate judges" still remained on the court.

In March 2026, the ruling coalition finally decided to fill vacant seats on the Constitutional Tribunal, the number of which had by then risen to six.

But this time the obstacle came from the new president, Karol Nawrocki, who is also linked to Law and Justice. He agreed to swear in only two judges, arguing that he opposed appointing all six as part of a single package.

For now, there are no signs that the situation surrounding the Constitutional Tribunal will normalise anytime soon.