Its creation was a request of the Solidarity movement following its 1981 National Congress that took place a few weeks before the introduction of martial law.[1] The Tribunal was established on 26 March 1982 and judges took office on 1 January 1986.
The tribunal's powers increased in 1989 with the transition to the democratic Third Polish Republic and in 1997 with the establishment of a new Constitution.[2] The Constitution mandates that its 15 members are elected by the Sejm, the lower house, for 9 years. It is the subject of an appointment crisis since 2015.
The Constitutional Tribunal adjudicates on the compliance with the Constitution of legislation and international agreements (also their ratification), 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.[citation needed]
Composition
The Constitutional Tribunal is made up of 15 judges chosen by the Sejm RP (the lower house of parliament) for single nine-year terms. The Constitutional Tribunal constitutes one of the formal guarantees of a state grounded on the rule of law.[citation needed]
History
1982–1989: People's Republic of Poland
The Constitutional Tribunal was established by the amendment of the Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland on 26 March 1982.[1] 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.[3] 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.[3] 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.[2] This in effect would place the rulings in an indefinite moratorium as these votes rarely occurred.[2]
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.[3] The claimants sought to contend two paragraphs of the Ordinance of the Council of Ministers in regard to the sale of state property and the procedures and costs related to it as unconstitutional.[3] In opposition to the government's stance, the court ruled in a 3-member panel on 28 May 1986 that the introduced paragraphs were unconstitutional.[3] The Council of Ministers called for a reevaluation of the case, but on 5 November 1986 the Constitutional Tribunal upheld its ruling.[3]
1989–2014: Third Polish Republic
In 1989 the Constitutional Tribunal's powers expanded as it secured the right to universally decide on the binding interpretation of laws.[2] 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 the form of abstract provisions).[2]
Before the new president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, assumed office on 6 August 2015, and the new (eighth) Sejm was seated on 12 November 2015, the PO majority attempted to nominate enough judges so that the judicial branch would not quickly fall under the control of PiS.
In 2015, 5 of the 15 seats were due to be replaced. Three terms were due to end during the Sejm's recess (after the 25 October election but before the eighth Sejm was seated on 12 November). Two others were due for early December.
PO attempted to nominate all five seats due to be vacant in the year 2015 in advance. In June 2015, they enacted a provision in which it sought to transfer such power to the Sejm.[4] Then on 8 October 2015, two weeks before the election, the Sejm elected these 5 judges. The new President Duda refused to let any of them take their oaths of office. After PiS won the elections and a majority of seats, they nominated a different set of five judges who were immediately sworn in.
This ignited a fierce partisan struggle, as the remaining judges in the Tribunal, most of which had been nominated by PO majorities, ruled out 3 of the 5 PiS nominees, validating instead 3 PO nominees,[4] with the 3 PiS judges sworn in not allowed to hear cases.
As a result, a law was immediately passed by the PiS majority to force the inclusion of its nominees, sparking protests and foreign statements of either hostility or support. As this was not enough, a total of 6 "remedial bills" devised by PiS were enacted in the 2015-2016 period.[4] A two-thirds majority was instated, diluting partisan influence. Finally, the term of resisting President Rzepliński ended and on 21 December 2016, President Andrzej Duda appointed junior member Julia Przyłębska as President of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Since the reform and takeover of the Constitutional Tribunal by the Law and Justice, the independence and sovereignty of the institution has been questioned. It was called a "puppet court" by Polish opposition judges' associations, some foreign judicial organisations and constitutionalist counterparts.[5][6][7][8] In February 2020, former Constitutional Tribunal judges, including former presidents of the tribunal Andrzej Rzepliński, Marek Safjan [pl], Jerzy Stępień [pl], Bohdan Zdziennicki [pl] and Andrzej Zoll, stated,
We, the undersigned retired judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, regret to state that the actions of the legislature and the executive since 2015, and the Constitutional Tribunal leadership since 2017, have led to a dramatic decline in the significance and the prestige of this constitutional body, as well as to the inability to perform its constitutional tasks and duties. Unfortunately, the widespread belief that the Constitutional Tribunal has virtually been abolished is correct.
— former Constitutional Tribunal judges, Ruleoflaw.pl[9]
PiS having been reelected to the Sejm in 2019, and the PiS-affiliated Andrzej Duda being reelected as president in 2020, they were able to fill the Court's 15 seats completely by 2021.
On 4 March 2024, following a non-PiS government being elected in October 2023 and formally sworn in on 13 December 2023, a package of measures was announced with the aim of reforming the Tribunal. The measures included a prospective Sejm resolution calling on illegitimately appointed judges to resign voluntarily and branding Julia Przyłębska as not being authorised to be the Tribunal's chief justice (Przyłębska having been sworn in by Duda in December 2016 without the required resolution being issued by the general assembly of Tribunal judges, and being believed by a number of legal experts to have sat completely illegitimately since December 2022[a]), prospective legislation to alter selection procedures (requiring candidates to take part in an open public hearing and to receive the approval of three fifths of MPs) and eligibility (anyone who has been an active politician within the last four years, including even being a member of a political party, would not be eligible to sit on the Tribunal; any politician who did get selected would not be able to rule on cases relating to legislation that they had been involved with within the last ten years), and prospective constitutional changes to allow for the implementation of the measures.[10]
The Tribunal received a referral by 119 MPs on whether or not abortions of pregnancies unrelated to rape or not threatening the mother's life, which they call "eugenic", are constitutional. The signatories argued that the provision violates Constitutional protections of human dignity (Article 30), the right to life (Article 39) or the prohibition against discrimination (Article 32).
On 22 October 2020, an 11–2 ruling[11] declared that abortion in Poland due to foetal abnormality was violating the Constitutional protection of human dignity. This effectively made abortions on that basis unobtainable for women in Poland. The provision had been used for 1074 of the 1110 legal abortions in 2019. The ruling triggered the October 2020 Polish protests, which forced the government to delay the ruling's publication in the Dziennik Ustaw until 27 January 2021.[12]
Article 19 of the Treaty on European Union (that establishes the ECJ), insofar as it gives ordinary courts the right to disregard the Constitution, and to adjudicate on the basis of provisions repealed by the Sejm or deemed unconstitutional by the TK, is unconstitutional;
Article 19 and Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (values) are unconstitutional insofar as they empower ordinary courts to question the constitutionality of judicial appointments by the President.
Consequently, all branches of power in Poland argue that Poland's membership in the European Union does not entail that institutions external to the state have the supreme legal authority.
This was widely interpreted as a challenge of the primacy of European Union law, which emerged in Costa v. ENEL (1964), with some talking of a judicial "Polexit".[14] European primacy, however, had never been fully enshrined by previous Polish rulings, only insofar as it doesn't infringe on Poland's sovereignty (see K 18/04).
In the summer and autumn 2015, a change of power occurred with Civic Platform (PO) losing both the Sejm and the Presidency to Law and Justice (PiS). These two branches appoint and swear new judges, respectively.
In 2015, the term of five judges was set to expire, three of which between Sejm election day and the new legislature's session, and two the month after. PO tried to appoint them in advance (they were: Roman Hauser, Krzysztof Ślebzak, Andrzej Jakubecki, Bronisław Sitek and Andrzej Sokala) but their oath was denied by the new PiS President, Andrzej Duda. As a result, they never sat. The new PiS majority nominated three other judges on 2 December 2015 (Henryk Cioch, Lech Morawski, Mariusz Muszyński) and two others the next week (Piotr Pszczółkowski, Julia Przyłębska), who were immediately sworn in. Cioch and Morawski later died while in office, and were replaced by Justyn Piskorski and Jarosław Wyrembak.
Of the appointments made before the election, the Constitutional Tribunal itself invalidated the last two and accepted the first three. As a consequence, of the appointments made after the election, the Tribunal accepted the last two (Piotr Pszczółkowski and Julia Przyłębska) and invalidated the first three (Henryk Cioch, Lech Morawski and Mariusz Muszyński). However, the ruling was disputed by the new government, who then went on to change the statutes regulating the Court, in order to have its nominees sit. See 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis.
Multiple cases were sent to the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice, challenging the Tribunal's legal status. In Xero Flor v Poland, the ECHR ruled on 7 May 2021 that a Polish company did not have the right to a fair trial because Muszyński's election was unlawful.[40] The Constitutional Tribunal is expected to judge on 3 August 2021 whether it will comply to the ruling or not; this is interpreted as a decision on whether the European or Polish courts are sovereign.[41] In a 14 July 2021 ruling, the Tribunal rejected the constitutionality of any attempt by the ECHR to suspend the Polish tribunals, as such competence has never been transferred by any treaty.[42]
Length of tenure
This graphical timeline depicts the length of each current justice's tenure on the Court:
^ abcAccording to the effective law (the Article 10 §2 of the Act of 30 November 2016 on organisation and mode of proceedings before the Constitutional Tribunal which came in force on 3 January 2017[84] after Przyłębska's appointment as the President) the term of the President of the Constitutional Tribunal lasts 6 years. Therefore Przyłębska's term should have ended on 21 December 2022. Przyłębska and her PiS backers, however, believed her term as President was not actually due to expire until December 2024, since this is when her term as a judge in general expires; as of 6 March 2024, she continued to sit as President of the Tribunal.[85][86][87]
^ abcdThe colors only represent the majorities that elected each judge, as the Polish Constitution of 1997 mandates that judges shall be independent and shall not belong to any political party (Article 195).[15]
^ abcdeThe 8th Sejm elected prof. Henryk Cioch, Lech Morawski and dr. hab. Mariusz Muszyński, even though prof. Roman Hauser, Krzysztof Ślebzak and Andrzej Jakubecki had been elected by the 7th Sejm in advance. The 3 seats' terms were to end after the 2015 election, but during the recess, leaving room for conflicting interpretation of the constitution. Since the Henryk Cioch and Lech Morawski died during their terms, dr hab. Jarosław Wyrembak and Justyn Piskorski who were elected on their place are also considered disputed.
^The colors only represent the majorities that elected each judge, as the Polish Constitution of 1997 mandates that judges shall be independent and shall not belong to any political party (Article 195).[15]
^ abcdefAlberski, Robert (2010). Trybunał Konstytucyjny w polskich systemach politycznych. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego. ISBN978-83-229-3146-2.
^ abcKryszkiewicz, Małgorzata; Osiecki, Grzegorz (2016). "Twarda linia Prawa i Sprawiedliwości". Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
^W związku ze złożoną rezygnacją, Uchwałą Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 26 maja 1993 r. w sprawie odwołania Prezesa Trybunału Konstytucyjnego (M.P. Nr 28, poz. 290) odwołany ze stanowiska z chwilą wyboru nowego Prezesa TK.
^W związku z rezygnacją poprzednika w trakcje kadencji, Uchwałą Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 19 listopada 1993 r. w sprawie wyboru Prezesa Trybunału Konstytucyjnego (M.P. Nr 62, poz. 558) powołany na stanowisko Prezesa TK.
^"Ślubowanie sędziego TK" (in Polish). Oficjalna strona Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. 16 February 2022. Archived from the original on 16 February 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
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