Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has proposed replacing every sitting judge of the Constitutional Tribunal in an attempt to end the country’s deepening constitutional crisis. The leader of the Polish People’s Party (PSL), a junior partner in Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, wants a one-off constitutional amendment that would retire the current judges and establish a new 15-member panel selected with broad parliamentary support. However, the proposal has already exposed divisions within the governing coalition, while opposition parties have yet to agree to the plan.
Kosiniak-Kamysz, who also serves as Poland’s defence minister, presented the initiative on Thursday, 5 November, during the Congress of Polish Local Government in Warsaw.
He described the proposal as an extraordinary renewal of the Constitutional Tribunal, intended to end the competing claims over the court’s leadership and the legitimacy of judicial appointments.
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According to his announcement reported by Polish Radio, PSL has prepared a draft constitutional amendment to create the legal basis for the changes.
Kosiniak-Kamysz argued that a lasting settlement should not depend on declaring one side of the existing political dispute the winner.
Instead, he wants the government, president and opposition to agree on a new arrangement that would be recognised across political divisions.
The proposal remains a political initiative. It has not been adopted, and there is no confirmed agreement among the parties needed to implement it.
How the proposed constitutional reset would work
The central feature of the plan is the replacement of the Constitutional Tribunal’s entire existing membership.
Under the arrangements outlined in reporting by Polish Radio, the National Council of the Judiciary would request an extraordinary renewal of the court.
The National Assembly — a joint sitting of the 460-member Sejm and 100-member Senate — would then be able to declare that the Tribunal was permanently unable to fulfil its constitutional responsibilities.
Such a decision would require support from at least three-fifths of the Assembly’s statutory membership, equivalent to 336 parliamentarians.
The existing judges’ mandates would end, and they would receive the formal status of retired Constitutional Tribunal judges.
The same National Assembly would subsequently elect a replacement panel of 15 judges.
The selection process would also require at least 336 votes, ensuring that the governing coalition could not make the appointments without broader parliamentary support.
Under the proposal, candidates would be put forward by the Speaker of the Sejm after consultation with senior judicial institutions and professional legal organisations.
The president’s prior consent would also be required.
The new judges would take their oaths before the National Assembly rather than relying on the present arrangement involving the president.
New judges would serve different terms
The proposed replacement panel would be temporary in the sense that it would be created through a special, one-off constitutional mechanism.
The 15 judges would be divided into three groups.
Five would serve three-year terms, five would serve six years, and the remaining five would serve nine years.
This staggered arrangement would prevent all the replacement judges’ terms from ending simultaneously.
After the transitional period, Poland could return to the existing judicial appointment system or introduce a more permanent reform if sufficient political support emerged.
Under Article 194 of Poland’s current Constitution, Constitutional Tribunal judges are individually elected by the Sejm for non-renewable nine-year terms.
The court has 15 judges, and the Constitution protects their independence.
PSL’s proposal would therefore require an explicit constitutional change rather than an ordinary parliamentary resolution or amendment to the law governing the court.
It would also represent a significant departure from the current rules by transferring responsibility for selecting the replacement judges to both parliamentary chambers acting jointly.
Why changing the Constitution would be difficult
Although PSL proposes a three-fifths threshold for replacing the Tribunal, that is not the voting threshold required to amend the Constitution itself.
Under Article 235 of the Polish Constitution, a constitutional amendment must pass the Sejm with a majority of at least two-thirds of votes cast, with at least half of the chamber’s statutory membership present.
The Senate must subsequently approve the amendment by an absolute majority, also subject to its constitutional quorum requirement.
A constitutional amendment can formally be introduced by at least one-fifth of Sejm members, the Senate or the president.
It also faces additional procedural requirements, including a minimum 30-day interval between submission and its first reading.
The governing coalition does not independently command the two-thirds Sejm majority necessary to approve the change.
That means opposition support would be essential.
It is a substantial obstacle because the dispute over the Tribunal has become one of Poland’s most contentious constitutional issues.
Kosiniak-Kamysz has presented his proposal as an attempt to secure agreement across political divisions, but parliamentary support has not been established.
Tusk’s coalition divided over the proposal
The initiative has received a mixed response from parties involved in the current political dispute.
Sejm Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty, from the New Left, expressed scepticism about whether a constitutional amendment could realistically be adopted during the present parliamentary term.
He argued that the Tribunal was already undergoing changes as judges elected by the Sejm began performing their duties.
Other politicians in the governing coalition have questioned whether replacing the entire court would be necessary or desirable.
According to reporting by Onet, some lawmakers from Tusk’s Civic Coalition reacted negatively, arguing that the proposal could undermine the work already undertaken to resolve the dispute.
There has been a more receptive response from some Poland 2050 politicians, who have supported exploring compromise arrangements.
On Thursday evening, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he continued to have full confidence in Kosiniak-Kamysz.
As TVP Info reported following his comments, Tusk also confirmed that he had known in advance about the PSL leader’s discussions with Confederation politician Sławomir Mentzen.
Asked about the ideas being discussed, Tusk expressed only limited enthusiasm for them.
His remarks did not amount to a formal endorsement of the constitutional reset.
The opposition has also responded differently.
Law and Justice (PiS) politician Paweł Szrot said his party was not currently willing to negotiate a reset while it continued to dispute the legitimacy of recent developments inside the Tribunal.
Confederation politician Michał Wawer indicated that his party would examine the proposal rather than reject it immediately.
These reactions demonstrate that the plan does not yet have the cross-party agreement on which it depends.
Why Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal is in crisis
The Constitutional Tribunal is responsible for determining whether legislation and other legal measures comply with Poland’s Constitution.
It plays a central role in the country’s legal system, including reviewing laws and resolving certain constitutional disputes.
The current crisis has developed from longstanding disagreements over judicial appointments, the Tribunal’s independence and the recognition of its rulings.
The disputes began during the period when PiS governed Poland and intensified after Tusk’s coalition took office in December 2023.
The government and its allies have argued that earlier appointments and institutional arrangements compromised the court’s independence.
PiS and President Karol Nawrocki have disputed the legality of some measures taken by the governing majority to change the Tribunal’s composition and leadership.
The conflict escalated further in late October 2026 amid disputes surrounding newly elected judges, the Tribunal’s leadership and the use of police at the institution.
The suspension of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański has itself become legally contested.
Poland-24 previously published a detailed explanation of the Constitutional Tribunal crisis, tracing the competing legal and political arguments.
The latest proposal is an attempt to move beyond those disputes by securing an agreement to replace the court’s membership.
But it raises a fundamental question of its own: whether ending the mandates of all sitting constitutional judges through an extraordinary mechanism would strengthen judicial independence or create another disputed precedent.
Former Tribunal presidents Andrzej Zoll and Jerzy Stępień have criticised the idea of a reset, according to interviews published by Onet.
Their objections highlight the legal concerns that would need to be addressed even if a political agreement became possible.
What happens next?
PSL must now seek support for its proposed constitutional changes.
That will require discussions not only with opposition politicians but also with other parties in the governing coalition and President Nawrocki.
The president’s role would be particularly significant because the proposed system explicitly requires his prior approval of candidates for the replacement panel.
Even a political agreement on the principle of replacing the Tribunal would not eliminate the constitutional requirements for passing an amendment.
Nor would it automatically settle wider legal disputes concerning the status of previous judicial appointments and decisions.
For now, Kosiniak-Kamysz has presented a detailed proposal rather than an agreed solution.
No parliamentary vote has taken place, no judges’ mandates have been terminated under the proposal, and the Constitutional Tribunal’s existing legal framework remains unchanged.
The initiative nonetheless introduces another option into a dispute that has already divided Poland’s political institutions.
Whether it progresses beyond the proposal stage will depend on negotiations between parties that currently hold sharply different views about the Tribunal’s legitimacy.
