Parliamentary speaker calls on ruling coalition to start filling constitutional court vacancies

The speaker of parliament, Szymon Hołownia, has called on the ruling coalition, of which he is part, to end its boycott of the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) and begin the process of appointing judges to fill the growing number of vacancies on its bench.

The Constitutional Tribunal is Poland's constitutional court, tasked with assessing the constitutionality of laws and resolving other constitutional disputes. However, in recent years it has been at the heart of the conflict over the judiciary between the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party and the current administration.

The government regards the Constitutional Tribunal as illegitimate due to the presence there of judges illegally appointed by PiS and PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda.

It has adopted a policy of ignoring Constitutional Tribunal rulings – which regularly go against the government – ​​and refusing to appoint new judges when existing ones' terms expire.

Last year, the government's majority in parliament approved two bills intended to overhaul the Constitutional Tribunal in order to “depoliticize” it and restore its legitimacy. However, instead of signing them into law, Duda sent them to the TK itself for assessment , effectively killing them off.

Duda's term in office ends next month, and the government had hoped that it would open the way to reforming the Constitutional Tribunal. But those ambitions have likely been dashed by last month's election of PiS-backed candidate Karol Nawrocki as Duda's successor.

In normal circumstances, the TK is supposed to have 15 judges, who each serve nine-year terms. However, currently it has only 11 because the ruling coalition has refused to nominate candidates to fill vacancies or to approve those put forward by PiS, which is now the main opposition party.

On Wednesday, one of the remaining Constitutional Tribunal judges, Krystyna Pawłowicz – a former PiS MP appointed to the court in 2019 – announced that she was retiring before the end of her term due to health reasons. She will step down in December.

“For performing their constitutional duties of defending and protecting the Polish constitution, Constitutional Tribunal judges are delegitimised, intimidated, humiliated and ridiculated,” she wrote in a statement. “These acts of hatred unfortunately had a negative impact on my health, irreversibly worsening it.”

Pawłowicz has been a particularly controversial and divisive figure . In 2022, she apologized after likening Donald Tusk – who was then an opposition leader and is now prime minister – to Hitler.

In response to Pawłowicz's announcement, Hołownia, who is speaker of the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, declared that “we should start filling the vacancies in the Constitutional Tribunal; there are four there now, and soon there will be five.”

“Soon this tribunal will become completely dysfunctional,” Hołownia warned, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “At some point, we need to make a decision that we will elect judges under the conditions that currently exist.”

“If the president does not want to cooperate and help heal this tribunal, then we need to start electing these judges, because [otherwise] soon there will be eight vacancies, then nine,” he concluded.

In October this year, the term of another TK judge, Michał Warciński, is due to expire. Next year, two further judges, Andrzej Zielonacki and Justyn Piskorski, are due to step down.

Main image credit: Dawid Zuchowicz / Agencja Wyborcza.pl