The judges—Krystian Markiewicz, Maciej Taborowski, Marcin Dziurda and Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, along with Magdalena Bentkowska and Dariusz Szostek —were sworn in during an event in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.
Bentkowska and Szostek had already taken their oaths before President Karol Nawrocki last week. The four remaining judges had invited the president to attend Thursday’s ceremony in parliament and administer the oath, but he did not appear, public broadcaster TVP Info reported.
During the ceremony, the judges addressed their oath to the head of state despite his absence.
The six judges were elected by lawmakers on March 13. Nawrocki has so far sworn in only two of them, arguing that only two vacancies existed on the 15-member court.
The president’s office has insisted that the oath can only be validly taken in the presence of the president.
In a statement issued earlier on Thursday, it said any attempt to replace the legally prescribed procedure "must be regarded as a refusal to comply with the law," which it argued would amount to relinquishing the judicial post.
Government officials and parliamentary leaders have taken a different view.
Speaking at the ceremony, lower-house Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty said he was presenting the judges with resolutions confirming their election "as an expression of the will of the nation."
The event was attended by upper-house Speaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, former Constitutional Tribunal presidents Marek Safjan, Jerzy Stępień, Bohdan Zdziennicki and Andrzej Zoll, as well as other judicial officials, state news agency PAP reported.
The ceremony, censured by the presidential palace and the right-wing opposition, added to ongoing tensions over control of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Former President Andrzej Duda said that while the president is bound by parliament’s choice of judges, taking the oath before the head of state is a necessary step for them to assume office. He criticised alternative forms of swearing-in as invalid.
Zbigniew Bogucki, head of Nawrocki's office, has also dismissed the parliamentary ceremony as improper, accusing the government of trying to take control of the court.
The Warsaw headquarters of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
The row is the latest chapter in Poland’s long-running dispute over the constitutional court, which has been at the centre of rule-of-law battles for years.
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in December that Poland's Constitutional Tribunal had breached key principles of EU law by failing to respect the EU court's judgments, and said the tribunal did not meet EU standards of independence because of irregularities in the appointment of three of its members and former tribunal president Julia Przyłębska.
After the ruling, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it amounted to a "green light" to "fix the tribunal" after years of legal turmoil.
Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek in January called for cross-party talks on "rebuilding a tribunal that is lawful, independent and trusted."
Under Poland’s constitution, Constitutional Tribunal judges are elected by parliament for nine-year terms.
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Source: TVP Info, polsatnews.pl, IAR, PAP