Judiciary of Poland

The judiciary of Poland (Polish: sądownictwo w Polsce [sɔn.dɔvˈɲi.t͡stfɔ v ˈpɔl.st͡sɛ]) includes all authorities exercising the judicial power of the Polish state on the basis of Chapter 8 of the Constitution. The Polish judiciary operates within the framework of civil law, like most of continental Europe.

The Constitution formally divides the judiciary into the courts (sądy) and the tribunals (trybunały). The courts process the vast majority of cases and are tasked with administering justice (wymiar sprawiedliwości). Administrative courts (sądy administracyjne) review complaints challenging the legality of administrative proceedings. Military courts (sądy wojskowe) are criminal courts for servicemembers stationed in Poland. All other cases (including cases where jurisdiction is not specifically mentioned) are processed in common courts (sądy powszechne). The Supreme Court is the court of last resort in all non-administrative cases, while administrative matters go to the Supreme Administrative Court. Everyone has a guaranteed right to appeal to a court of higher instance, but appeals and cassations to the apex courts are limited by law; therefore, only a fraction of cases may reach them.

Two tribunals operate separately from the rest of the judiciary. The Constitutional Tribunal (Trybunał Konstytucyjny) rules on the compliance of challenged statutes with the Constitution and is the only court in Poland that can strike down laws and regulations. The State Tribunal (Trybunał Stanu), which convenes very rarely, has exclusive jurisdiction over criminal trials of the highest state officials.

Court judges are appointed by the president of Poland upon nomination by the National Council of the Judiciary (Krajowa Rada Sądownictwa), an auxiliary body established for this purpose by the Constitution, and serve until they reach the mandatory retirement age of 65 or 70. They are assisted or supplemented by various other judicial officials in the court, including court assessors, law clerks (asystent), registrars (referendarz) and lay judges (ławnik). Professionals such as bailiffs (komornik sądowy) and probation officers (kurator sądowy) act on the court's behalf to enforce judges' orders. In contrast to the court judges, the ones sitting in tribunals (with the exception of those sitting there ex officio) are elected by the Sejm with a simple majority of its deputies.

Several issues plague the Polish judiciary. The courts are widely seen as too slow, and trust in the court system is low among the general population. Changes to the judiciary carried out from 2015 by the ruling United Right coalition, ostensibly aimed at remedying these handicaps, caused much controversy and provoked an ongoing constitutional crisis. The Law and Justice-led coalition was widely seen as trying to subjugate the courts to political control, which created a deep conflict between judges appointed before the conservative coalition made changes to the judiciary ("old judges") and their supporters and those appointed by the new rules ("neo-judges", neosędziowie). The Constitutional Tribunal, widely seen as captured by the Law and Justice party, issued decisions aiming to thwart the application of the unfavourable rulings of the ECJ and the European Court of Human Rights by asserting they were issued outside the courts' competences and without regard to the Polish Constitution. These international courts found that several key parts of the Polish judiciary do not guarantee impartiality or are improperly constituted.