The Constitutional Tribunal is the body that reviews whether laws comply with Poland’s constitution.
The four are Krystian Markiewicz, Maciej Taborowski, Marcin Dziurda and Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, all chosen by the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, on March 13.
Last week Nawrocki accepted the oaths of only two of the six judges elected that day, Magdalena Bentkowska and Dariusz Szostek, leaving the other four waiting to take office.
Justifying that move, Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the President's Office, said two vacancies had arisen during Nawrocki’s term and that swearing in two judges would restore the 11-member full bench required for the tribunal to operate in that format.
He said the status of the other four appointments was still under review because of what he described as serious procedural and constitutional flaws in the handling of the parliamentary vote.
The four judges argue they were elected in the same procedure as Bentkowska and Szostek and should be allowed to start work without delay.
Taborowski told the PAP news agency that if the president does not appear in parliament, the oath can still be taken and then formally delivered to the president.
Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek has said all six were elected properly and that the president cannot decide selectively which of them he wants to see on the court.
The row is the latest chapter in Poland’s long-running dispute over the Constitutional Tribunal, which has been at the center of rule-of-law battles for years.
In a resolution adopted in March 2024, MPs said two current tribunal members, Jarosław Wyrembak and Justyn Piskorski, were not lawful judges, and the government has refused since then to publish tribunal rulings in the Journal of Laws.
Last December, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the tribunal had violated EU law by failing to respect its judgments and by undermining effective judicial protection, a basic requirement for member states.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP