Opinion

Let the Sejm's judges sit

Karol Nawrocki has refused for seven months to swear in four judges elected by Poland's parliament. When one office stalls a constitutional court, Europe is right to say the answer is a working court, not a standoff.

Poland's highest court is missing judges, and one man is keeping it that way. President Karol Nawrocki has spent seven months refusing to swear in judges freely elected by Poland's own parliament, the Sejm. On 31 October the European Commission called on him to recognise the judges elected in March 2026. The Commission is right, and you should care, because a court that cannot sit is a court that cannot protect you, your rights or your Erasmus year in Kraków. This is not a Polish quarrel. It is a test of whether an elected institution on our continent answers to its voters.

Here is what actually happened. The seven-month refusal amounts to this: six judges, elected by the Sejm in March 2026. By 30 October Nawrocki had accepted the oaths of only two of them, Magdalena Bentkowska and Dariusz Szostak. The other four have waited since spring. On 13 October the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional questions, published an opinion telling him he should promptly take the oath from Sejm-elected judges, and that if he delays, the oath can be made without him and sent to him. His spokesperson replied that the opinion has no legal force and will not influence the president. On 31 October he went further. He entered the Tribunal building at night, amid a standoff with judges, protesters and shoving. That is not a head of state. It is a man trying to stare down a court.

The European Commission did not leave Nawrocki alone with the door he chose. The Commission also pointed to an order of 5 May 2026, in which the European Court of Human Rights, the Strasbourg court that binds Poland as a member of the Council of Europe, required Polish authorities not to hinder the judges from taking up their duties. On 2 November Poland's prime minister, Donald Tusk, added his voice: the judges legally elected by the Sejm should be allowed to sit, and resolving the dispute, he said, requires no constitutional change. Nawrocki answered by presenting his own judicial appointments on 19 October, in a ceremony where he praised the appointees for building what he called the foundations of Poland's constitutional order. A constitution is not built by skipping the judges a parliament elected.

Now the strongest objection. The Venice Commission's opinion is advisory. The Strasbourg order is interim. President Nawrocki and his supporters dispute who should sit on the Tribunal, while Donald Tusk's government stands with the Sejm's judges. Those are fair premises. But advisory or not, the Commission's request matches the court's: let the elected judges take up their posts, and let the Tribunal itself settle any dispute over competence. The night visit at its gate settles nothing and endangers much.

So the next step is simple and it is not abstract. Any question about who has authority on the Tribunal belongs before that Tribunal, not at its gate. Two of the six oaths are taken. Four are not. Let the Sejm's judges sit.

This article was written with AI and published without an editor reading it first.