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President of Poland Karol Nawrocki has vetoed the government’s act on the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, which would have significantly increased Poland’s subordination to the Strasbourg Court.

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As early as March 2025, the Ordo Iuris Institute warned that the government bill “poses a threat to the constitutional order of the state and imposes on the government unnecessary restrictions and obligations that are contrary to the interest of the state and to Poland’s raison d’état.”

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In September 2026, Ordo Iuris launched the “Let Us Defend Sovereignty” petition, calling on the head of state to veto the act, which had already been passed – the appeal was signed by 10,000 people.

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In October, the Chancellery of the President received a legal opinion from Ordo Iuris identifying 20 ECtHR judgments that violate the Polish Constitution, including on the structure of the judiciary, the President’s prerogatives, the protection of life, and the identity of marriage.

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In his 21-page statement of reasons for the veto, the President pointed to the same threats the Institute had warned about, including the subordination of courts to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the disregard of Constitutional Tribunal rulings, and the risk of the ECtHR acting beyond its jurisdiction.

What was the vetoed act about?

On Thursday, President of Poland Karol Nawrocki announced his decision to refuse to sign the Act of September 4, 2026 on the Execution of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and to refer it back to the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, for reconsideration under Art. 122(5) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland (legislative veto). The essence of the act was to elevate the Polish State’s execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to the rank of a binding statutory obligation: every Strasbourg judgment would henceforth give rise to an “obligation for the Republic of Poland to take individual measures or general measures,” without any tools to verify the compliance of a given judgment with the norms of universally binding law, including the Polish Constitution. The act implemented a document entitled “Action Plan of the Republic of Poland on Restoring the Rule of Law,” adopted on February 20, 2024 by the then Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar and disclosed to the public only on June 5, 2024, at the request of Ordo Iuris. As early as March 24, 2025, Ordo Iuris submitted its position to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stating that the act “poses a threat to the constitutional order of the state and imposes on the government unnecessary restrictions and obligations that are contrary to the interest of the state and to Poland’s raison d’état.” The bill also received a negative opinion from the National Council of the Judiciary (NCJ), in its opinion of June 26, 2025, and from the Supreme Court, in its comments of March 24, 2025.

The Ordo Iuris petition and legal opinion

In September 2026, immediately after the Sejm passed the act, the Ordo Iuris Institute launched the “Let Us Defend Sovereignty” petition, which on October 2 was submitted to the Chancellery of the President of Poland together with the signatures of 10,000 people. In October, the Chancellery of the President also received a legal opinion from the Ordo Iuris Institute. Among other things, the opinion listed as many as 20 judgments delivered by the Strasbourg Court in recent years which, in the spirit of ideological “judicial activism,” strike at the very core of the constitutional system of the Polish State by calling into question:

The President shared the concerns raised by Ordo Iuris

In the detailed, 21-page justification for the decision to veto the act, the President of Poland pointed to the same shortcomings of the government’s act that the Ordo Iuris Institute had mentioned:

  • the uncritical recognition of the absolute supremacy of ECtHR judgments over the domestic legal order, without any tools to verify the compliance of a given judgment with the norms of universally binding law (including the Polish Constitution), in the spirit of the theory that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is to be interpreted as a “living instrument” – a theory against which Ordo Iuris warned as early as February 2023 in the document entitled “Analysis of the Development of a Customary Understanding of Human Rights in Light of the Case Law of the Bodies of the Council of Europe, the European Union and the United Nations (Selected Problems)”. In the view of the President of Poland, the application of this theory “may lead to a profound reinterpretation of the provisions of the ECHR and to the Court acting in excess of its competences (ultra vires).”
  • the complete failure to take into account two judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal that declared provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (on the basis of which the ECtHR adjudicates) partially incompatible with the Polish Constitution (Constitutional Tribunal judgment of November 24, 2021, ref. K 6/21, and Constitutional Tribunal judgment of March 10, 2022, ref. K 7/21). President Nawrocki pointed out that “in the above judgments, the Constitutional Tribunal thus clearly emphasized that the limits of the impact of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights are set by the supremacy of the Constitution, the constitutional division of competences among state bodies, the exclusive jurisdiction of the Constitutional Tribunal to review norms, and the model for appointing judges laid down in the Constitution.”
  • the excessive endowment of each successive Minister of Foreign Affairs with extraordinary statutory powers. The justification for the presidential veto reads: “the possibility of proposing specific actions, the obligation to justify a refusal to undertake them, and the drafting of the final content of documents concerning the execution of a judgment create a mechanism for significant influence of the executive over the activities of other state bodies. Extending it to the courts leads to an encroachment upon the sphere of their constitutional autonomy.” The head of state added that “respect for constitutional guarantees cannot depend on a minister’s restraint or on the assurances of those currently in power. It must be grounded in unequivocal provisions of law.”

“It seems no coincidence that the act increasing Poland’s subordination to the Strasbourg Court was being processed by Donald Tusk’s government at the same time as the offensive directed against the Constitutional Tribunal. Fortunately, the firm stance of the President of Poland has blocked both of these threats,” says attorney Nikodem Bernaciak, a senior analyst at the Ordo Iuris Institute.

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Source of cover photo: iStock