Bogucki to Czarzasty: The procedure for selecting judges raises doubts as to its compliance with the Constitution

The position of the Chancellery of the Sejm regarding the procedure for selecting judges of the Constitutional Tribunal does not respond to the fundamental constitutional doubts raised by the president, said the head of the KPRP, Zbigniew Bogucki, in a letter addressed to the Speaker of the Sejm, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, on Monday.

The Sejm elected six judges of the Constitutional Tribunal – whose candidacies were formally proposed by the Presidium of the Sejm, and in fact by the clubs of the government coalition – on March 13. Last Wednesday, the head of the KPRP announced at He then noted that the analysis of the process of appointing Constitutional Tribunal judges “raises very serious doubts” as to the compliance of the procedure with the Rules of Procedure of the Sejm and the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.

The Head of the Chancellery of the Sejm, Marek Siwiec, responded to the letter of the head of the presidential chancellery on Thursday. However, as Bogucki assessed in Monday's entry on

Therefore, Bogucki – as he informed – sent a letter to Marshal Czarzasty in which he asked for clarification on two issues. A scan of the letter was attached to the entry he published on X.

“First of all, no answer was provided to the question why the constitutional principle of individualization of appointments expressed in Article 194(1) of the Constitution was not applied when selecting judges on March 13, 2026,” Bogucki wrote. This principle – as added by the head of the KPRP – assumes that the election of a Constitutional Tribunal judge must be “closely related to a specific vacancy and a specific term of office” and cannot be treated as “a collective political act referring simultaneously to many positions.”

Bogucki also noted that in the past, the Sejm elected Constitutional Tribunal judges to “a specific, individually designated position, related to the term of office of a specific judge, whose mandate expired on a specific date.” He assessed that the simultaneous election of six judges of the Tribunal was therefore contrary not only to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, but also to the practice of the Sejm.

Therefore, the head of the KPRP asked the Marshal of the Sejm why the motions processed by the Sejm regarding individual candidates for Constitutional Tribunal judges did not indicate “in place of which judge whose term of office expired on a specific date, a given candidate for a judge is elected.”

Bogucki stated that he had not received an answer from the Chancellery of the Sejm to the second question – why the Sejm did not take action to fill vacancies for Constitutional Tribunal judges in a timely manner, even though the expiry dates of individual terms of office were known in advance. He emphasized that this issue also involves a violation of the Polish constitution. “Failure to undertake the procedure within the time prescribed by law and then accumulating it after the expiry of subsequent terms was an obvious departure from the principles of correct and predictable appointment of positions in a constitutional body,” said the head of the KPRP.

He also assessed that the lack of response from the Chancellery of the Sejm to this specific question, as he emphasized, “should be read as a tacit admission that the lack of action by the government coalition was intended to paralyze the activities of the Constitutional Tribunal by the Government and the parliamentary majority and to intentionally destroy this constitutional body.” The head of the KPRP appealed to the Speaker of the Sejm to present to the president the motives that justify such action.

Last Wednesday, the Speaker of the Sejm, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, during a press briefing in the Sejm, emphasized that the issue related to the procedure for electing Constitutional Tribunal judges had been clarified in a statement posted the day before on the Sejm website. In a statement, the Chancellery of the Sejm stated that the Sejm elected the judges of the Constitutional Tribunal in accordance with the procedures. As noted, each candidate for a Constitutional Tribunal judge was voted on individually, and the commencement of the term of office of a Constitutional Tribunal judge is determined by the date of his or her election by the Sejm.

PiS MPs question the constitutionality of the election of Constitutional Tribunal judges, claiming that it violates, among others, election of as many as six judges. In their opinion, they should be elected at different times due to the end of the terms of office of individual Constitutional Tribunal judges. In February, PiS MPs submitted a motion to the Constitutional Tribunal questioning the constitutionality of the law regulating the election of Constitutional Tribunal judges. Last week, the Constitutional Tribunal postponed the hearing on this application without a date. He also decided to ask President Nawrocki to take a written position on this matter. (PAP)

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