Nawrocki accepted the oaths of Dariusz Szostek and Magdalena Bentkowska, two of the six people elected by the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, on March 13, state news agency PAP reported.
Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the President's Office, said the move fills two vacancies that opened during Nawrocki’s presidency and “completes the statutory requirement” for the tribunal to sit in full bench.
The Constitutional Tribunal, Poland’s top body for reviewing whether laws comply with the constitution, has 15 seats, but a full bench requires at least 11 judges.
Bogucki said the court had been operating with nine judges, and that the two new oaths were meant to restore its ability to rule on the most important cases without delay.
He said the president decided that keeping the tribunal functioning was a “higher value” than "the procedural objections" surrounding the broader appointment process.
Bogucki argued that parliament chose all six judges in a way that did not clearly state which outgoing judge each nominee was replacing or when each term was to begin.
That objection is why the other four March nominees, Krystian Markiewicz, Maciej Taborowski, Marcin Dziurda, and Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, were not sworn in. Bogucki said their cases are still being analyzed and no decision has yet been made.
Observers say the move points to a narrow political and legal calculation by Nawrocki. He has accepted only the two appointments that can be tied to vacancies created after he took office, while holding back on the rest of parliament’s attempt to reshape the court in one step.
The decision does not settle the wider dispute over the tribunal, which has been one of the most contentious institutions in Polish public life for years.
The current parliamentary majority says the court must be rebuilt to regain public trust and legal credibility.
Critics of the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government say earlier appointments politicized the tribunal and damaged its independence.
The deadlock has gone beyond domestic politics. Since 2024, many tribunal rulings have not been published in the Journal of Laws, Poland’s official legal gazette, and European courts have previously found serious flaws in parts of the tribunal’s composition and independence.
Wednesday’s ceremony may make the court easier to operate, but it leaves the basic question of its legitimacy unresolved.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP