Lower-house Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty is expected in February to announce new deadlines for nominating judges to the Constitutional Tribunal, according to sources quoted by Polish state news agency PAP.
The move would mark a shift in a yearlong stalemate.
Since late 2025, six seats have been vacant on the 15-member tribunal, leaving it with nine judges. Three previous votes in 2025 failed to produce enough support for any nominee, and parliamentary groups other than the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) had not been putting forward candidates.
PiS has again nominated MP Marek Ast and law professor Artur Kotowski, both of whom failed three times to be approved last year.
The lower house's Justice and Human Rights Committee gave their candidacies a negative opinion in December. A new vote on the pair is scheduled during a sitting on January 21 to 23.
With the outcome of that vote widely expected, Czarzasty is set to reopen the nominations process in February.
The same sources said leaders of the ruling coalition have agreed that their parties will submit candidates this time, with the Left, the Polish People’s Party (PSL), and the Poland 2050 group likely to propose one each, while the Civic Coalition (KO) would propose three.
A Left representative said the party would oppose nominees who do not recognize abortion as a human right, adding that its lawmakers would not accept conservative canon law professors.
The Constitutional Tribunal is Poland’s top body for reviewing whether laws comply with the constitution. Its composition has been disputed for years, after a 2015 confrontation over judicial appointments that became a central part of Poland’s broader rule-of-law conflict with the European Union.
In March 2024, MPs adopted a resolution warning that public authorities could violate the principle of legality if they relied on tribunal rulings issued in breach of law.
The lower house, the Sejm, also stated that two people currently sitting on the tribunal, Jarosław Wyrembak and Justyn Piskorski, are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Since that resolution, tribunal rulings have not been published in Poland’s Journal of Laws, the official gazette where judgments are normally promulgated.
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled last month that Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal had breached key principles of European Union law by failing to respect the EU court’s judgments, and said the tribunal did not meet EU standards of independence because of irregularities in the appointment of three of its members and former tribunal president Julia Przyłębska.
After the ruling, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it amounted to a "green light" to fix the tribunal after years of legal turmoil and signaled that its composition would be gradually rebuilt.
Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek called for cross-party talks on "rebuilding a tribunal that is lawful, independent and trusted."
Under Poland’s constitution, Constitutional Tribunal judges are elected individually by the Sejm for nine-year terms, with an absolute majority vote in the presence of at least half of all deputies. Nominations can be submitted by at least 50 deputies or by the Sejm Presidium.
Even if the current vacancies are filled, the tribunal faces further turnover this year. The terms of Judge Andrzej Zielonacki and Judge Justyn Piskorski are due to end on June 28 and September 18 respectively.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP, tvp.info