MAIN POINTS
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Earlier this month, Poland’s Supreme Court adopted a resolution in which it held that no court or other public authority is empowered to deem a Supreme Court judgment non-existent and to disregard its effects, and furthermore the Republic of Poland has not conferred upon the institutions of the European Union or any other international organization the power to establish rules governing the organization and functioning of the national judiciary.
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Reacting to this resolution, Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek threatened Supreme Court judges with unspecified consequences, and then issued a statement in which he challenged the resolution’s validity. The Minister’s actions raise serious doubts from the perspective of the constitutional principles of legality and the separation of powers.
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It is worth noting that during the session at which the resolution was adopted, the Supreme Court did not allow prosecutors seconded to the National Prosecutor’s Office by Dariusz Korneluk to participate, recalling that the lawful National Prosecutor is Dariusz Barski, as the replacement of the National Prosecutor in January 2024 was conducted in an unlawful manner by Justice Minister Adam Bodnar, who was Żurek’s predecessor in the Tusk government.
On December 3, 2025, the Polish Supreme Court, sitting as the combined Chambers of Extraordinary Review and Public Affairs and of Labor and Social Insurance, issued a resolution, bearing case number III PZP 1/25. This resolution unequivocally stated that:
1. No court or other public authority is authorized to declare a Supreme Court judgment null and void and to disregard its effects, even if this was to be done by invoking European Union law.
2. The Republic of Poland has not conferred on the institutions of the European Union or any other international organization the authority to enact rules governing the organization and functioning of the national judiciary, nor to determine the scope of their application. These powers are vested exclusively in the constitutional organs of the Republic of Poland and may not be transferred pursuant to Article 90(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland; consequently, Article 91(2) and (3) in conjunction with Article 87 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland do not apply in this respect.
With this resolution, Poland’s Supreme Court distanced itself from an earlier legal principle set out by a seven-judge panel only of the Labor and Social Insurance Chamber in the resolution dated September 24, 2025, case no. III PZP 1/25.
Concerns about the resolution of the Labor and Social Insurance Chamber
In that September resolution, the judges of the Chamber of Labor and Social Insurance stated that the judgments of the Chamber of Extraordinary Review and Public Affairs of the Polish Supreme Court, when rendered by a panel with the participation of even a single judge appointed since 2018, should be considered null and void (nonexistent).
This position reflects the ongoing dispute concerning a 2017 reform of the country’s judiciary by the then conservative parliamentary majority and was based on a highly controversial judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union dated September 4, 2025, in case C-225/22 AW “T”. In it, the CJEU held that Polish courts may treat judgments of the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs of the Polish Supreme Court (which was created as part of the said reform) as null and void, if this is necessary to ensure the primacy of EU law.
This judgment, however, in the first place, clearly went beyond the principle of conferral, laid down in Articles 4 and 5 of the Treaty on European Union, according to which the European Union has competences only in those areas in which they have been conferred upon it by the Member States—and the organization of the judiciary is not such an area.
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Source of cover photo: Adobe Stock
