Constitutional Tribunal (Poland)

The Constitutional Tribunal was established by the amendment of the Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland of 26 March 1982[5]. 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 [6]. 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 [6]. 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 [7]. This in effect would place the rulings in an indefinite moratorium as these votes rarely occurred [7].

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 [6]. 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 [6]. In opposition with the governments stance, the court ruled in a 3 member panel on 28 May 1986 that the introduced paragraphs were unconstitutional [6]. The Council of Ministers called for a revaluation of the case, but on 5 November 1986 the Constitutional Tribunal upheld its ruling [6].

In 1989 the Constitutional Tribunal's powers expanded as it secured the right to universally decide on the binding interpretation of laws [7]. 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) [7].

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 [8]. 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 [8]. 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 [8].

The three judges appointed in 2 December 2015 (Henryk Cioch, Lech Morawski, Mariusz Muszyński) are disputed. The Sejm appointed them (with two others) 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 (Bronisław Sitek and Andrzej Sokala) and accepted three (Roman Hauser, Krzysztof Ślebzak and Andrzej Jakubecki). As a consequence, of the appointments made after the election, the Tribunal accepted two (Piotr Pszczółkowski and Julia Przyłębska) and invalidated three (Henryk Cioch, Lech Morawski and Mariusz Muszyński). See Polish Constitutional Court crisis, 2015.

• Judiciary
• Rule of law
• Rule According to Higher Law
• Supreme Court of Poland
• Polish Constitutional Court crisis, 2015

• Media related to Constitutional Tribunal of Poland at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website