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Following the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court (NSA), and the regulation of May 22, 2026, several civil registry offices are carrying out transcriptions of foreign civil status records containing the details of persons of the same sex.

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As early as March 23, Deputy Minister Sebastian Gajewski requested that the President of the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) grant spousal benefits to persons in such unions, and on May 28 he sent an analogous letter to KRUS, the ZER MSWiA, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Prison Service.

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At a June 9 sitting of a subcommittee of the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament, the deputy minister admitted that he had agreed the position with ZUS Headquarters and had personally “sensitized” the directors of ZUS branches to the need to apply it.

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The pressure being exerted affects nearly 50,000 employees of pension and disability institutions, and private employers are already next in line with respect to health insurance registrations.

The Ordo Iuris Institute is revealing further documents confirming that Poland’s Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy is systematically pressuring the country’s social security institutions — the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS), the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS), the Pension Board of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration (ZER MSWiA), the Military Pension Office, and the Pension Office of the Prison Service — to grant spousal benefits to persons who have entered into formalized same-sex unions abroad.

Legal background: the CJEU and NSA judgments

The case originates in the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of November 25, 2025 (case no. C-713/23), in which the Court held that Poland is obliged to recognize as a “marriage” a union of persons of the same sex designated as a marriage under foreign law.

In its wake, the Supreme Administrative Court, in a judgment of March 20, 2026 (case no. II OSK 216/21), ordered the head of the Civil Registry Office of the Capital City of Warsaw to transcribe a foreign certificate of a so-called same-sex marriage. On May 22, 2026, Poland’s Minister of Digital Affairs and Minister of the Interior and Administration signed a regulation introducing new templates for marriage certificates, which effectively enabled civil registry offices to carry out such transcriptions.

Deputy Minister Gajewski’s letters to ZUS and other institutions

The Ministry’s activity did not end there, however. As documents obtained by Ordo Iuris show, as early as March 23, 2026, Undersecretary of State Sebastian Gajewski sent the President of ZUS a letter (ref. DUS-I.0211.1.2026.KO) in which — invoking the minister’s supervision over ZUS — he recommended the “uniform application of the law” to persons of the same sex recognized abroad as “spouses”, covering, among other things, the care allowance, the survivor’s pension, the funeral allowance, registration for health insurance, and the payout of funds from a ZUS sub-account. On May 28, 2026, an analogous letter (ref. DUS-II.070.37.2026) was sent to the President of KRUS, the Director of the Pension Board of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration, the Director of the Department of Social Affairs of the Ministry of National Defense, and the Director of the Pension Office of the Prison Service — demanding that these institutions bring their practice into line with the Ministry’s position.

In both letters, Gajewski invoked not only the case law of the CJEU and the Supreme Administrative Court (NSA), but also Article 34(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, concerning the right to social security benefits for persons moving within the Union, and — in the letter to KRUS, the ZER MSWiA, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Prison Service — additionally Article 32(1) of the Polish Constitution, pointing to the need for “a uniform interpretation of the provisions of law in the area of social security, regardless of the authority granting the benefits”. In this way, the minister responsible for family affairs, who has no supervisory competence over most of the addressees of these letters, is attempting to standardize the practice of the country’s entire pension and disability administration.

Revelations from the Sejm subcommittee

The scale and manner of these actions were revealed by Gajewski himself during a June 9 sitting of the Sejm’s Standing Subcommittee on Poland’s Implementation of the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the CJEU. He reported that, together with a team from ZUS Headquarters, he had “analyzed all benefit entitlements” that could be granted to same-sex couples, and that the ZUS position had previously been “agreed” with the minister. The deputy minister also admitted that, the day after the subcommittee’s sitting, he had a meeting “with all the branch directors and members of the ZUS management board”, at which he intended to “strongly sensitize” them to the need to bring the practice of individual branches, inspectorates, and field offices into line with the ministry’s position.

The Ministry’s response to Ordo Iuris’ request

In connection with these findings, on June 17 Ordo Iuris filed a request for access to public information, demanding, among other things, the full text of the analysis prepared with the ZUS Headquarters team, the letters sent to the heads of the institutions listed above, and an account of the meeting with ZUS management. In its reply of July 1, 2026, the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy provided copies of both letters — to the President of ZUS and to the heads of KRUS, the ZER MSWiA, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Prison Service — while refusing, invoking Article 4(3) of the Act on Access to Public Information, to disclose the full text of the analysis and the list of its authors, arguing that the Ministry is not in possession of them. The Ministry also stated that it does not have the responses of ZUS or the other institutions to the letters in question.

The documents obtained unequivocally confirm that the family ministry is attempting to impose on Poland’s social security and social provision institutions an interpretation of the law that is contrary to Article 18 of the Constitution, Article 1 of the Family and Guardianship Code, and Article 107 of the Law on Civil Status Records — provisions that have not been amended in any way. The case thus goes beyond a dispute over the interpretation of the CJEU and NSA judgments, which concerned solely the transcription of a civil status record, and moves onto the ground of administrative practice imposed on officials from above. In practice, this means pressure on the consciences of nearly 50,000 employees of ZUS, KRUS, the ZER MSWiA, the Military Pension Office, and the Pension Office of the Prison Service, who are required to apply an interpretation that has no basis in the legislation in force.

The Ordo Iuris Institute notes that the mechanism described here is not an isolated episode. Private employers are already next in line: following ZUS’s position, they are beginning to be expected to register partners from foreign same-sex unions for health insurance as “family members” of an employee. Ordo Iuris will continue to monitor the responses of the heads of KRUS, the ZER MSWiA, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Prison Service to Deputy Minister Gajewski’s letters and will take further legal steps to protect the constitutional definition of marriage and the freedom of conscience of the officials required to apply the law.

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Source of cover photo: iStock