Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek confirmed Strzembosz’s death on Friday, calling him “a legend of the Polish justice system.”
Born in Warsaw on September 11, 1930, Strzembosz was a professor of law long associated with the Catholic University of Lublin.
During communist rule, he opposed authoritarianism and, after 1980, became involved in organizing independent union structures within the justice ministry.
Following the fall of communism in 1989, Strzembosz helped build Poland’s democratic judiciary.
He served as a deputy justice minister in Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s government, later becoming first president of the Supreme Court, chairman of the State Tribunal and head of the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS).
In 2012, he was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honour, for his role in democratic transformation and his defence of the rule of law and judicial independence under communist rule.
In recent years, he was a vocal critic of judicial changes made by Poland's previous right-wing government.
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Source: TVP Info, IAR, PAP