“Judges, in accordance with the law, may participate in giving opinions by providing written support to candidates. However, this informal procedure – without legal significance – serves only to fuel disputes within the community and to try to demonstrate that this will be a different National Council of the Judiciary, “elected” by judges,” this is how assemblies of judges meant to give opinions on candidates to the National Council of the Judiciary are described by the Chair of the National Council of the Judiciary, Judge Dagmara Pawełczyk-Woicka.
The current four-year term of the judicial “fifteen” – members of the National Council of the Judiciary – ends on May 13. The selection of their successors is preliminarily scheduled for a sitting of the Polish Sejm, which will take place on May 13-15, 2026.
On February 27, the Polish Sejm adopted, by a majority vote, a resolution concerning the selection of the judicial fifteen, which includes an assurance that the Sejm “will take into account in its decisions the results of elections conducted by judges in general and transparent elections”.
As reported by TV Republika and Niezalezna, meetings of 15 candidates for the National Council of the Judiciary supported by the associations Iustitia and Themis are being held in courts across Poland. In line with the will of Minister Waldemar Żurek, on April 20 general assemblies of judges are to be held in most Polish courts, during which candidates for the National Council of the Judiciary will be evaluated. This kind of “primary election” has sparked opposition from a significant part of the legal community, which points to the lack of such a mechanism in the law.
However, the idea was positively assessed by the presidents of 10 courts of appeal in a joint statement published on March 9, 2026.
Head of the National Council of the Judiciary: It fuels disputes
Today, the Chair of the National Council of the Judiciary, Dagmara Pawełczyk-Woicka, addressed this procedure on social media.
On the one hand, she spoke as a representative of a candidate for the National Council of the Judiciary, Judge Stanisław Zdun, informing that the judge does not consent to being evaluated by assemblies due to the lack of statutory competence and the method of voting.
“For my part, I would add that judges, in accordance with the law, may participate in giving opinions by providing written support to candidates. However, this informal procedure – without legal significance – serves only to fuel disputes within the community and to attempt to demonstrate that this will be a different National Council of the Judiciary, ‘elected’ by judges. The latter serves only to justify eight years of actions by judges, and above all politicians, against the National Council of the Judiciary and the majority of judges appointed in the years 2018-2025”, said Judge Pawełczyk-Woicka.
She added that these actions “have had, have and will continue to have a repressive, defamatory character and violate judicial independence”.
Assemblies outside the law
The extra-legal nature of these “primaries” was once again highlighted by the organization Lawyers for Poland, which reiterated its recommendation “to refrain from participating in the assemblies, and preferably to abandon convening them altogether”.
“The process of selecting judges to the National Council of the Judiciary, regulated by statute, does not provide for any role for assemblies of judges at any level. In particular, it does not authorize these bodies to conduct any elections, primaries, or give opinions. In this respect, the assemblies are convened without a legal basis and may even be assessed as acting contrary to the law”, stated the Lawyers for Poland Association.
It was added that the assemblies of judges “are not authorized to process personal data of candidates for the National Council of the Judiciary unless those candidates have given explicit consent”.
“The convening of assemblies of judges for the purpose of this evaluation is accompanied by pressure from the Ministry of Justice and subordinate court presidents aimed, firstly, at ensuring judges’ participation in these activities, and secondly – support exclusively for candidates backed by the Ministry of Justice and organizations affiliated with it”, reads the statement by Lawyers for Poland.