MAIN POINTs
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Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office has asked the Supreme Court to lift the immunity of judges Piotr Schab, Przemysław Radzik and Michał Lasota, accusing them of posing as disciplinary prosecutors after their alleged dismissal by the Minister of Justice.
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The charge is absurd, because no provision of Polish law empowers the Minister to dismiss the disciplinary prosecutors before the end of their term, and the Supreme Court has almost uniformly held these dismissals ineffective. If anyone should face criminal liability, it is rather Ministers Adam Bodnar and Waldemar Żurek.
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The prosecutors’ actions follow a familiar pattern: high-profile charges designed to destroy reputations, with no effective rulings to follow. Similar steps have recently been taken against prosecutor Michał Ostrowski, who in February 2025 opened an investigation into a coup d’état against Poland’s constitutional order.
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On October 14, 2026, Minister Żurek ordered an immediate break in the official duties of judges Schab, Radzik and Lasota, relying solely on the motions filed by the prosecutors who answer to him. As the statutory conditions are not met, the orders can be expected to be set aside – as happened in earlier, similar cases in which the Minister acted on political motives.
In Poland, the Minister of Justice also serves as Prosecutor General. Since 2024, the government of Donald Tusk has sought to take control of the disciplinary system for judges. Its main obstacle has been the Disciplinary Prosecutor for Judges of the Common Courts and his two deputies, appointed in 2022 for a fixed four-year term. Ministers Adam Bodnar and Waldemar Żurek simply announced their “dismissal” in 2025, even though no statute grants them such a power – and the Supreme Court refused to recognize it. Now the prosecutors subordinate to Żurek have gone a step further: they accuse the three judges of impersonating the very office they lawfully held.
On October 9, 2026, the National Prosecutor’s Office asked the Supreme Court for permission to hold judges Piotr Schab, Przemysław Radzik and Michał Lasota criminally liable. The core charge is exceeding their authority by posing as the Disciplinary Prosecutor or his deputy despite their dismissal by the Minister of Justice (Art. 227 in conjunction with Art. 231(1) of the Criminal Code).
One cannot impersonate an office from which no one has lawfully been removed
As we have pointed out thirteen times already (!), Art. 112(3) of the Law on the System of Common Courts provides that the Minister appoints the Disciplinary Prosecutor and his deputies “for a four-year term”, but it does not provide for their dismissal before the term expires. Art. 7 of the Polish Constitution leaves no doubt:
The organs of public authority shall function on the basis of, and within the limits of, the law.
It follows – as Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal held as early as its resolution of May 10, 1994 (ref. W 7/94), issued after President Lech Wałęsa had removed the head of the National Broadcasting Council without any power to do so – that the competences of public authorities cannot be presumed. The Supreme Court recalled this principle in its decision of December 8, 2025 (ref. II ZOW 80/22) and confirmed the unlawfulness of the dismissals in at least five other rulings in 2025.
Since the dismissals were unlawful, it is rather Ministers Adam Bodnar and Waldemar Żurek who should answer under Art. 231 of the Criminal Code for exceeding their authority by acting without a legal basis.
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Source of cover photo: iStock
