A new report by Polish lawmaker and legal scholar Marcin Romanowski, published by the Institute of World Politics (IWP) in Washington, D.C., raises alarm over what he calls the rise of a “liberal juristocracy” in Poland and across the West — a system in which unelected judges and legal elites wield political power without democratic accountability.
The report, titled “National Sovereignty vs. Liberal Juristocracy: The Construction of a Liberal Regime of Lawlessness and Militant Democracy in the Sphere of Justice in Poland after 2023,” argues that Poland has become a central battleground in the struggle between democratic sovereignty and judicial oligarchy.
“Oligarchic Rule of Liberal Judges”
Romanowski defines juristocracy as “the oligarchic rule of liberal judges — a system in which legal elites, lacking any democratic mandate, seize real political power by controlling and, when necessary, blocking the decisions of democratically elected majorities.”
According to the report, between 2015 and 2023, Poland’s conservative governments made one of the few genuine attempts in Europe to dismantle this model and reassert democratic oversight over the judiciary. These reforms included the removal of higher courts’ monopoly on judicial appointments and disciplinary procedures, and the introduction of algorithm-based random case assignment to reduce manipulation in case distribution.
Romanowski contends that these efforts to decentralize judicial power provoked “revenge” from Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s left-liberal administration, which he accuses of “unlawful takeovers of courts, politically motivated purges, and abolition of random case assignment systems.” He alleges that the judiciary has now been “fully subordinated to Tusk’s government” in defiance of statutory law and rulings of the Constitutional Court.
“From Rule of Law to Rule Above the Law”
The report also places Poland’s judicial crisis within a broader Western context, claiming that the rise of juristocracy reflects a deeper crisis of democracy in liberal-left systems, where courts are used to “entrench elite power at the expense of the people’s will.”
Romanowski writes that liberal judges and politicians have created “their own decision-making centers — ‘rule of law’ understood as rule above the law.”
In Poland, he traces this dynamic back to what he calls a “late post-communist alliance” between liberal elites and remnants of the communist establishment after 1989 — an arrangement that, he argues, secured impunity for past crimes while preserving influence over politics, media, and the economy.
European Backing and Political Motives
Romanowski claims that the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU are actively supporting Poland’s left-liberal political forces, promoting EU centralization and what he describes as a “pro-German and anti-transatlantic orientation.”
He argues that this alliance aims to “regain full control over the judiciary, dismantle the achievements of democratic reforms, and ensure impunity for Tusk and his entourage after two years of unlawful governance.”
Poland as a “Frontline State” in the Global Battle
Despite what he calls a coordinated assault by domestic and European liberal elites, Romanowski concludes on a note of cautious optimism.
“Poland remains one of the few countries — alongside Hungary and the United States — where, thanks to the conservative and Christian character of society, there is still a chance to break this globalist liberal autocracy,” he writes.
He warns, however, that this very resistance explains “the intensity of the assault on independent institutions and conservative representatives in Poland,” which he says is “closely coordinated between Tusk’s administration, Brussels, and Luxembourg.”
Romanowski’s report is available on the IWP website: iwp.edu/articles/2025/.