Poland’s post-2023 political reset was always going to be turbulent. A change of government after years of institutional tug-of-war rarely comes with a clean handover – especially when the departing camp and the incoming one fundamentally disagree about what the state is, who legitimately embodies it, and which institutions deserve deference. But a new legal report argues that what Poland is experiencing is not merely turbulence. It is a deliberate strategy: replacing constitutional restraint with political expediency, and substituting formal procedures with “emergency” governance justified by a higher cause.
That is the core thesis of Rule of Law in Ruins: Poland under the “December 13” Coalition, published in January 2025 by the “Lawyers for Poland” (Prawnicy dla Polski) Association. The report frames the current ruling coalition’s approach as an accelerated “reclaiming” of institutions – often portrayed as restoration of legality, but allegedly executed through measures that erode the very rule-of-law standards invoked to defend them.
The report’s central warning: legalism is being replaced by justification
The introduction of the report places unusual weight on political rhetoric: it cites public statements interpreted as signaling that strict compliance with black-letter law is no longer the operating principle of governance. In the authors’ view, that rhetorical shift is not cosmetic – it is the policy. They argue that Poland is entering a phase where legality is treated as an obstacle to be “managed,” rather than a boundary that acknowledged state power must respect.
This matters because constitutional order is not upheld by goodwill; it is upheld by process. When process becomes optional – when the state begins to act as if winning elections confers a roving mandate to refashion institutions by any means – the rule of law stops being a neutral framework and becomes a political weapon.
Courts as a battlefield: the Warsaw Court of Appeals case
One of the report’s most detailed episodes concerns the Court of Appeals in Warsaw, which handles some of the country’s most consequential matters – commercial disputes, organized crime cases, and proceedings with political sensitivity. The report describes a sequence of actions by the executive branch that allegedly removed or neutralized court leadership before the end of their terms, including physical and technical barriers to accessing offices and documents.
The report also highlights interim measures issued by the Constitutional Tribunal that, in the authors’ telling, were disregarded while personnel changes continued. It argues that the effect is not simply a staffing dispute but a demonstration effect: if court leadership can be displaced through pressure rather than lawful procedure, judicial independence becomes conditional – dependent on political alignment rather than constitutional guarantees.
Public media: “liquidation,” force, and a deeper argument about censorship
The report devotes substantial attention to Poland’s public broadcasters and the Polish Press Agency, describing the government’s liquidation of public media companies and subsequent management changes as both unprecedented and legally defective. It alleges these actions proceeded despite Constitutional Tribunal safeguards and relied on a Sejm resolution that, under the report’s argument, does not constitute a valid source of universally binding law in Poland.
Beyond governance mechanics, the report argues that media pluralism is being constrained through selective access and exclusion – particularly against outlets portrayed as government-independent. It describes incidents in which journalists were barred from press conferences and access to information, framing the pattern as an emerging form of soft censorship: not formal bans, but administrative practices that limit scrutiny where it is most uncomfortable.
Church–state flashpoint: the monastery search and the Concordat
Perhaps the most symbolically charged incident in the report is the December 2024 search of a Dominican monastery in Lublin during an effort to locate opposition MP Marcin Romanowski. According to the report, the search was conducted with a posture more typical of high-risk operations – officers in balaclavas, extensive documentation, and drones overhead – raising questions about proportionality and intent.
The authors go further: they argue the action violated the 1993 Concordat between Poland and the Holy See, which provides for the inviolability of places designated for worship, and allows searches only under specific conditions (including required ecclesiastical consent, except in exigent life/health/property scenarios). The report frames the episode as part of a broader conflict over the public role of religion, with spillover into education policy, conscience protections, and financial leverage over Church institutions.
Prosecutorial power and the “hostage” narrative: the Father Michał Olszewski case
If the monastery case is about symbolism, the section on Father Michał Olszewski is about coercive state power. The report claims that key prosecutorial decisions in the case were taken by individuals it characterizes as unlawfully appointed to the National Prosecutor’s Office, rendering procedural steps – charges, extensions, detention motions – legally questionable.
The report also argues that the legal theory used against the Profeto Foundation (linked to Father Olszewski) conflicts with EU principles governing grant competitions – particularly around the alleged misuse of “lack of experience” as a disqualifying criterion. Most explosively, the report asserts mistreatment amounting to torture, and signals an intention to pursue international mechanisms once domestic remedies are exhausted.
Whether a reader accepts the report’s conclusions or not, the case is presented as a stress test for prosecutorial neutrality: are pre-trial detention and public messaging being used primarily to secure evidence and ensure due process, or to create deterrence and humiliation for politically adjacent targets?
“Flawed legislation” and a legitimacy argument that could destabilize everything
A rule-of-law crisis is rarely confined to one institution. The report warns of a cascading effect: if parliamentary procedure becomes constitutionally defective, then statutes enacted under that defect become vulnerable, and the legal system begins to eat itself.
In its “Passing Flawed Legislation” chapter, the report argues that legislative acts may be constitutionally tainted if the Sejm and Senate operate in an unconstitutional composition – such as when duly elected MPs are prevented from exercising their mandates, or when constitutional incompatibilities arise from office-holders acting in roles they cannot legally combine. It points to an example involving the exclusion of two MPs from Sejm proceedings and references a Constitutional Tribunal ruling that found such circumstances incompatible with the principle of legalism.
The significance is straightforward: if foundational laws – budgets included – are contested on procedural legitimacy, governance becomes a permanent courtroom drama, and every policy choice can be attacked as void.
“Starving” institutions: budget as a lever against judicial checks
The report contends that the executive-legislative majority has applied financial pressure to institutions designed to check government power – especially the Constitutional Tribunal, the National Council of the Judiciary, and the Supreme Court – by reducing their budgets as part of a stated strategy of “adjustment.”
In constitutional design, courts and oversight bodies are not meant to be popular; they are meant to be resilient. If budgets can be cut as retaliation for decisions or institutional existence, the separation of powers becomes a slogan rather than a reality.
The 2025 election scenario: institutional conflict becomes existential
The report’s most alarming projection concerns the 2025 presidential election. It describes public statements and institutional positioning that, in the authors’ view, could lay groundwork to contest the validity of the election by challenging the status of the Supreme Court chamber responsible for certifying results. The report points to the State Election Commission’s approach to implementing (or delaying implementation of) relevant rulings as a “harbinger” of a larger confrontation.
The fear outlined is a constitutional limbo: if certification is deemed impossible or illegitimate, the path opens for an interim transfer of presidential duties to the Speaker of the Sejm – concentrating power in the parliamentary majority, even if the opposition wins the presidency. This is not framed as routine legal disagreement; it is framed as a scenario that could rupture democratic legitimacy at the most visible level of the state.
Foreign policy, ambassadors, and the constitutional duty to cooperate
Finally, the report shifts to foreign affairs – not because diplomacy is separate from the rule of law, but because it is governed by constitutional division of competencies. It argues that ambassadorial appointments, by constitutional design, require cooperation between the President and the government, and that undermining this practice damages both domestic constitutional order and Poland’s external credibility.
If you want the full detail – case chronologies, legal citations, and the report’s proposed remedies – please read the complete document. You can find the full file directly below this article.