This article is a part of Poland Unpacked. Weekly intelligence for decision-makers
A week after the swearing-in of two new Constitutional Tribunal judges, the initiative shifted from the president to the Sejm. On April 1, President Karol Nawrocki accepted the oaths of Dariusz Szostek and Magdalena Bentkowska – two of six judges elected in March to the Constitutional Tribunal.
The head of the Presidential Chancellery, Zbigniew Bogucki, explained the move, arguing, among other things, that during Karol Nawrocki’s presidency two vacancies had arisen in the Tribunal. He also acknowledged that the judges not invited to take the oath had engaged in public activity that the president disapproved of. As he noted, “it cannot be ignored that these two individuals [Bentkowska and Szostek – PAP], in no way, at least in any obvious public manner, engaged in various activities of a political nature on either side of the spectrum.”
“I think this is also an important aspect, because it is an aspect of judicial independence,” Mr. Bogucki said.
The issue of judicial independence concerned Krystian Markiewicz, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, Marcin Dziurda, and Maciej Taborowski.
Constitutional Tribunal. Parliament takes the initiative
After the Easter break, the initiative shifted to the Sejm. On 9 April at 12:30 p.m., the lower house was scheduled to hold the swearing-in of the remaining four judges elected in March.
The law on the status of Constitutional Tribunal judges stipulates that newly elected judges take their oath before the president. President Karol Nawrocki delayed for more than two weeks before inviting the judges to the Presidential Palace for the ceremony. Under the law, he is required to do so without delay. All six newly elected judges had submitted written declarations confirming their readiness to be sworn in. After the oath was administered to Dariusz Szostek and Magdalena Bentkowska, the remaining judges contacted the president to ask for a date.
Ahead of Thursday’s ceremony in the Sejm, the judges also sent letters to the president informing him of the event.
“As a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal elected on March 13 under Article 194(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, I am obliged to immediately begin performing my judicial duties. […] On two occasions, in letters dated March 26, 2026 and April 1, 2026, I requested that a date be set for taking the oath at the Presidential Palace. In the absence of any response from the Presidential Chancellery, I hereby respectfully invite the President to attend the Sejm of the Republic of Poland on April 9, 2026 at 12:30 p.m., where I will take the oath in order to assume the duties of a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal,” reads one of the letters addressed to the president.
Warnings from the presidential camp
Public speculation about alternative forms of oath-taking has surfaced in recent weeks as the political system awaited the president’s next move. In justifying the president’s decision, Zbigniew Bogucki also referred to such ideas. He argued that these actions would amount to a waiver of judicial mandates by the judges elected by the Sejm in March.
On Thursday morning, the Head of the Presidential Chancellery issued a statement. Zbigniew Bogucki said that taking the oath in the Sejm, without the participation of the president, would constitute a breach of the law and of the judges’ “impeccable character.”
Politicians from the Law and Justice (PiS) party struck a similar tone after the announcement of Thursday’s swearing-in ceremony in the Sejm. One of the arguments put forward is that such a step would amount to a renunciation of the intention to take the oath before the president. The president, however, has not announced any decision regarding the remaining judges.
There were, nonetheless, a few dissenting voices within the political camp. Krzysztof Szczucki, a Law and Justice MP currently suspended from the party, believes that President Nawrocki should accept the oath from all six judges. The same view was expressed by former president Andrzej Duda, who made the remark… on a podcast hosted by MP Szczucki.
The requirement to take the oath before the president remains a matter of dispute. In light of the president’s reluctance to accept the oath from the four judges, Thursday’s ceremony in the Sejm will need to include a reference to the president in some form. How exactly this requirement will be fulfilled has not been clarified by the Sejm Chancellery.
The role of the president
Questions are also being raised about President Karol Nawrocki’s conduct – specifically the grounds on which he decided which judges’ oaths he would accept.
In an interview with XYZ, Prof. Tomasz Słomka, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, sees an attempt by the president to expand the scope of his political influence.
Fireside chat
“The Constitutional Tribunal and the presidency are two independent constitutional institutions”
XYZ: The head of the Presidential Chancellery, Zbigniew Bogucki, argues that since two vacancies in the Constitutional Tribunal arose during President Karol Nawrocki’s term, the president is only inviting two out of the six newly elected judges to take the oath. Does that reasoning convince you?
Prof. Tomasz Słomka: I am absolutely not convinced by Minister Bogucki’s argument linking the Tribunal judges’ terms of office to the president’s term. The Constitutional Tribunal and the office of the president are two independent constitutional institutions. Likewise, there is no link between the judges’ terms and the parliamentary term, even though the Sejm holds the mandate of national representation. The judges’ terms are tied solely to the end of their predecessors’ mandates.
This is a legal and political maneuver by the Presidential Chancellery and Minister Bogucki. Through a certain political shortcut, a majority necessary for adjudication was secured. The president could wash his hands of it and say he ensured the minimum required for continuity of the state, and that the rest was not his responsibility. However, there is no clear criterion as to why precisely these two judges were invited and not the others. The only visible criterion is a political one. The president refused to accept the oath from judges nominated by Civic Coalition and Left parliamentary groups.
After being pressed by journalists, Minister Bogucki admitted that the public activity of the other newly elected judges was not without significance.
This is a certain institutional discovery: that the presidential office is meant to monitor a judge’s activities and assess whether they were appropriate or not. That is not the president’s role.
At the beginning of Andrzej Duda’s presidency, there was a situation in which he did not accept the oath from judges elected in excess at the end of the PO–PSL government, but also from those elected correctly. How would you compare the actions of the two presidents?
They are not entirely comparable. President Duda took advantage of the unfortunate turmoil in 2015. The Constitutional Tribunal itself found that parliamentary maneuver unconstitutional, which means that the PO–PSL coalition passed a law at the end of its term that was incompatible with the constitution. Nothing justifies the president’s failure to accept the oath from duly elected judges. It was the first such case in which the prospect of taking control of the Tribunal proved more important than constitutional provisions. It was a devastating experience, because the president is the guardian of the constitutional order and should exercise the utmost diligence. He did not do so.
The case of Karol Nawrocki is linked to the previous one in that the president is assuming a prerogative allowing him to decide whether to accept or refuse an oath. In doing so, the president assigns himself an authoritative and decisive role, while the only authoritative actor in this procedure is the Sejm. It is the Sejm that elects judges and determines who they are. Just as the Sejm does not elect the president. The National Assembly administers the oath to him, but does not decide who he is.
What is the political significance of President Nawrocki’s move? What signal does it send to the governing camp?
What President Nawrocki is doing fits into a broader context. A symbolic moment was his first address delivered on August 6, when he assumed office. It revealed a model that has become increasingly clear over time. For analytical purposes, I call this model populist neo-Caesarism. It refers to the pre-war concept of political neo-Caesarism developed by Prof. Antoni Peretiatkowicz, in which a democratically elected leader claims a right to largely unconstrained power by invoking the will of the sovereign. Since the August 6 address, this constant appeal to the will of the nation has been evident. By invoking this mandate, the president believes he is entitled to push the boundaries of the constitutional order.
Neo-Caesarism means that the president sees himself as a key component of the executive branch, equal in stature to the legislature and decisive in determining how the judiciary operates. The concept emerged at a time when Europe was haunted by visions of strong authority. Italian fascism, for example, inspired many systems at the time. The model of strong leadership was then seen as attractive.
Today, both in Europe and globally, there is again a tendency to draw on the idea of strong authority that controls various domains and rapidly resolves problems.
On Thursday, the remaining judges elected in March are due to take their oath in the Sejm. A week earlier, Minister Bogucki said that taking the oath in any form other than in the presence of the president would be treated as a resignation from serving as a Constitutional Tribunal judge. What could be the outcome of Thursday’s ceremony?
I do not know the precise details, beyond the fact that it is to take place in the presence of the speaker of the chamber that elected the judges.
Under Article 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, which states that all public authorities act on the basis and within the limits of the law, even if there are reservations about the statute requiring the oath before the president, certain minimum standards must be observed. I can imagine that the Speaker of the Sejm may be present in the process. It does not have to take place at the presidential palace, but the oath must clearly be addressed to the president. After taking the oath, the judges should sign the oath in the presence of a notary, and the president would have to be explicitly indicated as the addressee.
If you are asking about possible outcomes, then listening to what presidential officials are saying, I can imagine they will not recognise it as a valid oath. There are also constitutional scholars who argue that “before the president” means in his presence. This would be another chapter in the conflict, and the president of the Tribunal would likely not allow such judges to begin work.
Is only a constitutional reset capable of saving the situation in the Tribunal?
I would prefer the term “constitutional round table”, meaning an agreement among all political forces in parliament to review the constitution. They could consider which provisions have become obsolete or no longer correspond to practical expectations.
While I have little faith in such political cooperation, I still hope it would be possible if a non-partisan, state-oriented perspective were adopted. Even the best amendments to the constitution will not be effective unless accompanied by the political will to implement them. The first step should be to improve the provisions as far as possible.
Oath-taking in the Sejm without the president
On 9 April (Thursday), four judges took their oath in the column hall of the Sejm. They were joined by two judges who had been sworn in at the Presidential Palace the previous week. They repeated their oath in a gesture of solidarity with the judges whom the president had not invited.
Although the president was not present at the ceremony, the judges explicitly stated, while taking the oath, that they were swearing “before the president.” Their oath declarations were certified by a notary. The newly appointed judges were then expected to go to the filing office of the Presidential Chancellery, located next to the Sejm, to submit their written oath documents.
Sejm Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty said at a press conference that he considered the matter closed. Deputy Speaker Piotr Zgorzelski stated that, given the president’s reluctance to accept the oath from four of the judges, the governing coalition had demonstrated maximum goodwill. Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the president’s stance as an “abdication.”
Presidential aide: “a farce”
Presidential minister Zbigniew Bogucki has not changed his stance. In his view, what took place in the Sejm was a “farce,” and the Constitutional Tribunal still consists of 11 judges, including Dariusz Szostek and Magdalena Bentkowska, who were sworn in on April 1 at the Presidential Palace and again on April 9 in the Sejm. He refers to the remaining judges as “anti-judges.”
Mr. Bogucki’s remarks were responded to by Deputy Justice Minister Dariusz Mazur, who suggested that the president should invite the four judges previously excluded to take their oath at the Presidential Palace.
Key Takeaways
- Political scientist Prof. Tomasz Słomka believes that the president is overreaching in expanding his sphere of influence. In the expert’s view, Karol Nawrocki exemplifies a form of neo-Caesarist political behavior.
- President Karol Nawrocki has accepted the oath only from two out of the six judges of the Constitutional Tribunal elected in March. He has not made a decision regarding the remaining four. Presidential minister Zbigniew Bogucki has, however, acknowledged that political considerations influenced the selection of judges whom the president invited to take the oath.
- The remaining judges elected by the Sejm have been waiting for nearly a month for the opportunity to take their oath. As a result of the president’s inaction, they are due to be sworn in on Thursday in the Sejm. They have extended invitations to President Nawrocki. According to the president’s aides and Law and Justice politicians, taking the oath in this form would amount to a resignation from serving on the Constitutional Tribunal.