One of Poland’s leading human rights organisations has questioned the legality of the disputed suspension of the Constitutional Tribunal’s president and vice-president, warning that the attempt to change the court’s leadership could establish a dangerous precedent.
The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR) issued its assessment on Saturday, 31 October, following judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska’s decision to interrupt the official duties of tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski and vice-president Bartłomiej Sochański.
The Foundation argued that the legal basis for the measure was unclear, particularly because Korwin-Piotrowska relied on her position as the judge with the longest judicial service to assume responsibility for directing the institution.
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However, the organisation also reaffirmed its longstanding criticism of the tribunal’s functioning and maintained that judges lawfully elected by parliament should be permitted to exercise their responsibilities.
It called for a wider constitutional agreement to restore the institution’s independence rather than attempting to resolve the crisis through competing claims to its leadership.
The position is significant because it challenges the methods used in the latest confrontation without endorsing the president’s or opposition’s broader interpretation of the constitutional dispute.
The Foundation’s statement, published on 31 October, was signed by its president, Maciej Nowicki.
Human rights organisation questions legal basis for suspensions
The Helsinki Foundation examined the orders announced by Korwin-Piotrowska on Friday, 30 October, which required Święczkowski and Sochański to stop performing their official duties for up to one month.
Korwin-Piotrowska maintained that the measures were necessary because of alleged irregularities in the management of the tribunal and the exclusion of judges elected by the current Sejm.
Both officials reject the decisions and dispute her authority.
In its assessment, HFHR questioned whether the statutory provisions invoked could lawfully be applied by Korwin-Piotrowska.
The Foundation said it could identify “no clear legal basis” for such a decision being issued by the judge with the longest judicial service.
Its concern focused on who was legally entitled to exercise the relevant powers, not simply whether allegations concerning the tribunal’s leadership deserved examination.
According to the organisation, Polish law allows the longest-serving judge to substitute for the tribunal president only in specified circumstances.
These include a vacancy in the presidency or a situation in which the president cannot authorise another judge to act in their place.
HFHR argued that neither condition had been established in the present case.
The organisation also questioned the use of exceptional constitutional circumstances to justify the procedure.
It warned that invoking a state of constitutional necessity could amount to acknowledging that there was no unambiguous statutory authority for the action.
The Foundation’s assessment was reported in detail by Wirtualna Polska, which reproduced substantial passages from the statement.
The criticism represents a legal assessment by an independent organisation.
It is not a court ruling declaring the suspension orders invalid.
What does Article 130 actually allow?
The dispute centres partly on Article 130 of Poland’s Law on the Organisation of Common Courts.
The provision establishes circumstances in which a judge may be ordered to stop performing official duties immediately, pending consideration by a disciplinary court.
Under the statutory wording of Article 130, such action can be ordered by a court president or the justice minister where the circumstances specified in the legislation are satisfied.
The initial interruption cannot last longer than one month.
Where the judge concerned is themselves a court president, the provision assigns that authority to the justice minister.
The law also requires the appropriate disciplinary court to review the temporary measure, either replacing it with a suspension or revoking the original decision.
This distinction is central to the latest controversy.
The Constitutional Tribunal has its own legislation governing the status and disciplinary responsibility of its judges.
Korwin-Piotrowska maintains that the relevant provisions provide a basis for the measures she announced.
The Helsinki Foundation questions whether those powers can be exercised in this way by a judge who has assumed the tribunal’s leadership through a disputed interpretation of the substitution rules.
Its objection therefore concerns the relationship between different statutory provisions and the limits of the authority they confer.
The Foundation has not argued that tribunal judges should be immune from disciplinary scrutiny.
Rather, it maintains that disciplinary measures must be initiated by an institutionally authorised person and carried out through a legally defensible procedure.
This is particularly important where the decision concerns the president of a constitutional court.
Foundation warns of a dangerous precedent
HFHR’s statement went beyond questioning the immediate suspension orders.
It warned that accepting the disputed procedure could create a “dangerous precedent” for the future.
The organisation outlined a hypothetical scenario in which a future parliamentary majority elects a judge with sufficiently long judicial experience to the Constitutional Tribunal.
That judge could then seek to remove the court’s existing leadership by using a similar interpretation of the substitution and disciplinary rules.
The result, the Foundation argued, could be a method for taking control of the tribunal without following the ordinary constitutional process for appointing its president.
This concern reflects a broader principle: a procedure adopted to address one constitutional crisis may later be used by another political majority for different purposes.
For an institution intended to review the constitutionality of laws, the question of who can lawfully exercise authority is particularly consequential.
Under Article 194 of Poland’s Constitution, the tribunal consists of 15 judges chosen individually by the Sejm for nine-year terms.
The tribunal’s president and vice-president are appointed by the President of the Republic from candidates proposed by the judges’ General Assembly.
The procedures for selecting the court’s leadership are therefore distinct from the ordinary election of its members.
A disputed temporary interruption of duties does not itself amount to a new constitutional appointment.
Nevertheless, the Foundation warned that using the mechanism to transfer practical control of the tribunal could undermine confidence in the safeguards surrounding those appointments.
Criticism does not mean support for the existing tribunal leadership
The Foundation’s assessment is important because it does not adopt the position advanced by Święczkowski, President Karol Nawrocki or opposition Law and Justice (PiS) politicians in its entirety.
HFHR has repeatedly criticised the deterioration of the Constitutional Tribunal’s independence since 2015.
It maintains that the institution has experienced a prolonged crisis involving judicial appointments, its internal administration and the handling of politically sensitive cases.
The organisation also argues that the president cannot block or invalidate an appointment lawfully made by parliament.
That position is relevant to the dispute over judges elected by the current Sejm whose oaths were not received by Nawrocki.
Some subsequently took their oaths through an alternative procedure, which the president and the tribunal’s existing leadership dispute.
HFHR maintains that judges properly elected by parliament should be allowed to begin exercising their duties.
Its criticism of Korwin-Piotrowska’s suspension orders therefore does not imply acceptance of every measure taken by the existing tribunal management.
Nor does it amount to endorsing the government’s approach to resolving the crisis.
The organisation’s position is that longstanding institutional problems require urgent remedies, but those remedies must themselves respect the rule of law.
That distinction separates its assessment from many of the political arguments surrounding the confrontation.
Foundation previously raised allegations about judicial panels
The Helsinki Foundation’s criticism of the tribunal is not limited to the latest confrontation.
Earlier this year, it submitted a complaint to prosecutors concerning alleged irregularities in the appointment and alteration of judicial panels hearing Constitutional Tribunal cases.
The Foundation argued that changes made to the composition of panels could have breached statutory procedures and undermined the institution’s independence.
On 15 September 2026, the National Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation following that complaint.
The prosecutors’ official announcement, published on 17 September, said the investigation concerned suspected abuses of authority in the assignment and alteration of tribunal panels.
The alleged irregularities involved both the individuals selected to hear cases and changes to the number of judges sitting on particular panels.
Prosecutors said the investigation would examine whether statutory rules had been disregarded and whether the conduct amounted to criminal wrongdoing.
Opening an investigation does not establish that offences occurred or determine the responsibility of any individual.
The Foundation referred to that earlier case in its October statement as evidence that its concerns about the tribunal’s management predate the latest political confrontation.
Its position is therefore that serious problems require investigation and correction, while the methods chosen to address them must also be lawful.
‘Constitutional reset’ proposed as an alternative
Rather than supporting the disputed leadership changes as a permanent solution, HFHR called for what it described as a constitutional reset.
The idea is associated with a proposal developed by the Stefan Batory Foundation, another Polish civil society organisation.
In a policy paper published on 28 September 2026, constitutional lawyer Tomasz Zalasiński argued that attempts to repair the tribunal through existing political and legal arrangements had reached an impasse.
His proposed alternative would change the constitutional rules governing the selection of tribunal judges.
The model envisages dividing appointments among three institutions:
- Seven judges would be selected by the Sejm.
- Five would be selected by the Senate.
- Three would be selected by the President of the Republic.
This would replace the current system, under which the Sejm elects all 15 tribunal judges.
The proposal also includes a four-year restriction on appointing active politicians to judicial positions and a three-year term for the tribunal president.
The wider reset would involve ending the current judges’ terms through an agreed constitutional mechanism and filling the resulting vacancies under the revised system.
Its objective, according to the authors, is to prevent any single parliamentary majority from exercising disproportionate influence over the court’s composition.
The proposal is not government legislation, and its adoption has not been agreed by Poland’s major political parties.
It would require constitutional change rather than a simple parliamentary resolution.
Why a constitutional reset would be difficult
Changing the tribunal’s composition and appointment rules would involve one of the most demanding legislative procedures in Poland.
Article 194 of the Constitution currently gives the Sejm responsibility for electing tribunal judges and establishes their nine-year terms.
The Batory Foundation’s proposed distribution of appointments would therefore require amending the constitutional framework itself.
Under Article 235 of the Constitution, constitutional amendments require at least a two-thirds majority in the Sejm, with at least half its members present.
They must also receive an absolute majority in the Senate, again with the required quorum.
These thresholds make broad political agreement essential.
A government coalition cannot necessarily deliver the constitutional changes on its own, even if it commands an ordinary parliamentary majority.
The proposals would also have to address the legal status of existing judges and the transitional arrangements governing their replacement.
The authors of the reset proposal acknowledge that such a process would be politically difficult.
Their argument is that an agreement involving competing political interests could provide a more durable solution than one side attempting to assert control under disputed existing rules.
The Foundation’s endorsement does not mean that an agreement has been reached or that a new appointment system is imminent.
Foundation also condemns confrontation with president
The Helsinki Foundation addressed the physical confrontation that took place at the Constitutional Tribunal during the night of 30–31 October.
President Nawrocki interrupted an overseas trip and returned to Warsaw following the announcement of the disputed leadership changes.
He subsequently visited the tribunal, where a confrontation occurred as he entered the building.
Video recordings show physical contact between the president and people standing near the entrance.
Those involved have given conflicting accounts of who initiated the contact and whether anyone acted unlawfully.
The Foundation criticised the confrontation as damaging to the authority of state institutions.
It argued that the scenes represented a visible symptom of the wider constitutional crisis.
The president’s office has subsequently announced plans to file criminal complaints against three people elected as tribunal judges.
Poland-24 has separately reported on the planned complaints and the disputed accounts of the confrontation.
The Foundation’s statement should not be interpreted as an independent determination of criminal responsibility.
Its broader concern is that increasingly confrontational measures are making an agreed restoration of the tribunal’s functions more difficult.
What happens next at the Constitutional Tribunal?
The legal dispute is continuing alongside new attempts to establish disciplinary procedures for Święczkowski and Sochański.
On Sunday, Korwin-Piotrowska announced plans to expand the agenda of a General Assembly scheduled for Tuesday, 3 November.
The additional item would involve drawing judges to serve on disciplinary panels examining the temporary interruption of the two officials’ duties.
As of the latest independently verified reporting on Monday morning, the revised order had not been confirmed as issued, and no disciplinary panel had been confirmed as selected.
Poland-24 has covered the planned disciplinary process and the competing claims of authority.
The Helsinki Foundation’s assessment introduces a further question into those proceedings: whether the legal authority used to initiate them can withstand scrutiny.
At the same time, it maintains that resolving the immediate dispute over who directs the tribunal would not, by itself, repair the institutional problems that have accumulated since 2015.
The Foundation is advocating a broader political and constitutional agreement that changes the rules under which the court operates.
Whether Poland’s governing coalition, the president and opposition parties would support such an agreement remains uncertain.
The Helsinki Foundation’s intervention underscores a central dilemma in Poland’s constitutional crisis: restoring an institution’s independence may require decisive action, but measures taken without a clear legal foundation risk deepening the very dispute they are intended to resolve.
