Constitutional Tribunal (Poland)


The Constitutional Tribunal is the constitutional court of the Republic of Poland, a judicial body established to resolve disputes on the constitutionality of the activities of state institutions; its main task is to supervise the compliance of statutory law with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. It was established on 26 March 1982 by the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland after the introduction of martial law, an attempt to crush political opposition.
The Constitutional Tribunal adjudicates on the compliance with the Constitution of legislation and international agreements, on disputes over the powers of central constitutional bodies, and on compliance with the Constitution of the aims and activities of political parties. It also rules on constitutional complaints.
The Constitutional Tribunal is made up of 15 judges chosen by the Sejm RP for single nine-year terms. The Constitutional Tribunal constitutes one of the formal guarantees of a state grounded on the rule of law.
Three judges, appointed by the President of the Tribunal, serve as members of the National Electoral Commission.
In 2016 Julia Przyłębska, an ally of Law and Justice, was appointed as President of the Constitutional Tribunal. Her appointment has been argued to be unconstitutional because she was appointed directly by the President of the Republic rather than being elected by judges on the Tribunal, as required by Poland's Constitution.
Since the reform and takeover of the Constitutional Tribunal by politicians from the ruling party, the independence and sovereignty of this institution has been criticized and often called as a "puppet" court by many Polish judges associations and foreign judicial organizations and also by the counterparts of the Constitutional Tribunal in other countries.

History

The Constitutional Tribunal was established by the amendment of the Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland of 26 March 1982 Due to the brevity of the introduced article 33a it was decided that a law must be brought forth that would outline the proceedings of the Constitutional Tribunal. This became an intricate process with 15 drafts developed, and the final act was ratified by the Sejm on 29 April 1985 which allowed for the formal commencement of the Tribunal's judicial proceedings on 1 January 1986. But the courts competence and judicial capacity were limited at this time, as all rulings on the constitutionality of bills could be dismissed by a 2/3 majority vote in the Sejm. This in effect would place the rulings in an indefinite moratorium as these votes rarely occurred.
On 24 January 1986 the first motion, reference U 1/86, was brought before the Constitutional Tribunal on behalf of the Presidium of the Provincial National Council in Wrocław. The claimants sought to contend two paragraphs of the Ordinance of the Council of Ministers in regards to the sale of state property and the procedures and costs related to it as unconstitutional. In opposition with the governments stance, the court ruled in a 3-member panel on 28 May 1986 that the introduced paragraphs were unconstitutional. The Council of Ministers called for a revaluation of the case, but on 5 November 1986 the Constitutional Tribunal upheld its ruling.
In 1989 the Constitutional Tribunal's powers expanded as it secured the right to universally decide on the binding interpretation of laws. Many changes came with the enactment of the 1997 Constitution; the number of judges increased from 12 to 15, terms of office were elongated by 1 year for a total of 9 years, and the Tribunal lost its competence to decide the interpretation of legal statutes.
In June 2015, the Sejm of the VII tenure enacted a new provision on the Constitutional Tribunal in which it sought to transfer the power of election of all Constitutional Tribunal judges whose term ended in 2015 to the Sejm. Subsequently, 5 judges were elected by the Sejm on 8 October 2015 and an additional 5 on 2 December 2015 by the Sejm of the VIII tenure which resulted in what was known as the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. Between November 2015 and December 2016, 6 so-called remedial bills which were devised by the Law and Justice party were enacted and in December 2016 the President of the Constitutional Tribunal replaced 3 judges appointed by the VII tenure with 3 judges from the VIII tenure.

Current Justices

No.Term of officeFull nameComment
1.since 23 July 2012prof. Leon Kieres
2.since 2 December 2015dr hab. Mariusz MuszyńskiVice-President of The Tribunal since 5 July 2017
Disputed
3.since 3 December 2015Piotr PszczółkowskiDisputed
4.since 9 December 2015Julia PrzyłębskaPresident of the Tribunal since 21 December 2016

Disputed
5.since 28 April 2016dr hab. Zbigniew Jędrzejewski
6.since 20 December 2016dr hab. Michał Warciński
7.since 28 June 2017dr Andrzej Zielonacki
8.since 18 September 2017dr hab. Justyn PiskorskiDisputed
9.since 30 January 2018dr hab. Jarosław WyrembakDisputed
10.since 8 April 2019dr Wojciech Sych
11.since 5 December 2019dr hab. Krystyna Pawłowicz
12.since 5 December 2019Stanisław Piotrowicz
13.since 5 December 2019prof. Jakub Stelina
14.since 7 January 2020dr hab. Rafał Wojciechowski
15.since 9 April 2020Bartłomiej Sochański

The three judges appointed on 2 December 2015 are disputed. The Sejm appointed them before the parliamentary elections of 2015; after these elections, the Sejm invalidated their appointment and elected five new judges in their place. The president denied the serment to the five appointed before the election and swore the five new judges in. Cioch and Morawski died while in office. Two new judges were appointed: Justyn Piskorski and Jarosław Wyrembak.
Of the appointments made before the election, the Constitutional Tribunal itself invalidated two and accepted three. As a consequence, of the appointments made after the election, the Tribunal accepted two and invalidated three. See Polish Constitutional Court crisis, 2015.