Equality before the law is only possible when justice is blind—administered to all indiscriminately, without fear or favour. Lacking the votes necessary to amend the law, Tusk’s government has effectively abolished this principle by decree. Under new regulations, court presidents appointed by the minister of justice now effectively hand-pick judges, ensuring that the outcome of court proceedings becomes a politically desirable foregone conclusion.
Donald Tusk’s left-liberal government and its political allies have just introduced, in violation of statutory law, a fundamental change to the mechanism for assigning cases to judges, through an executive act, namely a ministerial regulation. Under these new rules, instead of all three judges on an adjudicating panel being selected by random draw, only one is now chosen by lot, while the other two can be “appointed” by court management—most of whom were themselves unlawfully installed by the Tusk government.
This decision constitutes an attack on the constitutional principles of impartiality and judicial independence. It abandons randomness—the very safeguard ensuring that no authority or superior could influence who hears a case. In practice, court presidents, now loyal government appointees, have gained a tool to hand-pick panels for key, particularly political, cases. This change completes the process of subordinating the judiciary to the executive branch. After taking over the prosecution service and unlawfully dismissing court presidents, the Tusk government now wields control over adjudication itself.
Poland’s Random Case Allocation System (SLPS) was introduced in 2018–2019 as an institutional principle and cornerstone of the justice reform carried out under the previous government led by Conservative Law and Justice. At its crucial implementation stage, I oversaw the system’s launch as the Minister’s Plenipotentiary for Digitalisation and Cybersecurity. We devoted enormous effort to ensure that all three-judge panels were selected randomly—a key safeguard of impartiality in second-instance courts, where final judgments are issued. This essential guarantee of the right to a fair trial (Article 45 of the Constitution) is now being dismantled.
The system automatically assigns cases through a random number generator. No human, neither the court president nor the minister, can interfere with the outcome. Thus, no party or superior can influence who adjudicates a case. The reform aimed to end the pathological practice of manual case assignments, characteristic of the so-called juristocracy, where outcomes were predetermined by assigning “appropriate” judges under elite influence. Alongside reforms to the National Council of the Judiciary (NCJ), SLPS was a pillar of genuine judicial independence, hence the fierce opposition from liberal-leftist circles to conservative reforms between 2015 and 2023.
SLPS also responded to recommendations from the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers and the European Commission, both of which recognised transparent, objective, and random case assignment as a cornerstone of judicial independence. Poland’s reform was exemplary, eliminating arbitrariness and shielding citizens from political interference.
The political capture of the courts began in 2024, when Minister Adam Bodnar launched an unprecedented purge of judicial leadership—dismissing presidents and vice-presidents before the end of their six-year statutory terms, in violation of Article 23 §1 of the Law on Common Courts. He ignored negative opinions from court collegia, the NCJ, and an interim injunction from the Constitutional Court issued on 27 February 2024 (ref. Ts 32/24). When the Court ruled on 16 October 2024 that such dismissals without NCJ involvement violated the Constitution, the government refused to publish the judgment, defying Article 190(2) of the Constitution and justifying its actions by claiming the Court itself was “illegal.”
In Warsaw, almost the entire judicial leadership was replaced. New appointees linked to openly politicised judicial associations now control court administration and case assignment.
Once leadership was replaced, courts were reorganised. New criminal sections were created in Warsaw, staffed exclusively with judges considered “safe” by the government. Meanwhile, judges appointed after 2017—those nominated by the President upon recommendation of the reformed NCJ—were systematically removed from key divisions or reassigned to minor cases, especially in the Warsaw Regional and Appellate Courts.
Their places were filled with judges delegated by the minister, whose light caseloads increased their chances of being “randomly” selected. This allowed manipulation of the SLPS: Draws were limited to a narrow pool, yielding predictable panels. Such manipulation occurred in proceedings related to the Justice Fund.
In my case, a judge known for overt political activism (in fact, for alleged hate speech) took the opportunity to remove the randomly selected judge from hearing my complaint against an arrest carried out in violation of international law. At that time, the attempt was unsuccessful, but by early 2025, panels were already being changed—sometimes due to “illness,” at other times because of “leave,” or through additional “re-draws”—until further lotteries were conducted to ultimately assemble a politically convenient panel.
Until now, such control required complex reorganisations. Minister of Justice Waldemar Żurek’s amendment eliminates these constraints outright. By allowing manual appointment of two judges, it permanently resolves the “problem” of unpredictability.
This decision effectively abolishes the SLPS in appellate cases, where final judgments are rendered. The 2018 reform sought to eliminate human influence over panel composition; that foundation is now destroyed. Impartiality has been replaced by discretion and political steering.
This marks the final stage of judicial capture. After subordinating the prosecution service, unlawfully dismissing court presidents, and reorganising divisions, the government now controls adjudication itself. Politicians can decide who investigates, who prosecutes, and who judges.
In such a reality, judicial independence ceases to exist. The citizen’s right to an impartial tribunal becomes an empty phrase. Instead of equality before the law, Poland faces chaos, political interference, and the collapse of procedural guarantees. The judiciary now serves the rulers, not the ruled. The actions of the Minister of Justice were met with an immediate and sharp reaction from the President. Opposition MPs and the National Council of the Judiciary also promptly announced their intention to file a motion with the Constitutional Tribunal to declare the new regulations inconsistent with the law; however, it must be remembered that Tusk’s administration does not respect the Tribunal’s rulings.
Yet this system of lawlessness is beginning to crack. Many recent government decisions appear as desperate attempts to retain power amid growing public opposition and discredit. A serious debate is already emerging on how to rebuild the judiciary after the fall of this regime. Institutional reforms are not only necessary—their frameworks, and often even draft bills, are already prepared. Of course, putting an end to the European Commission’s and the Court of Justice of the European Union’s treaty-violating interference is essential. But after nearly two years of liberal autocracy and the moral bankruptcy of legal elites—judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and academics—there can be no illusions: Genuine restoration of the rule of law requires excluding those who consciously helped destroy the constitutional order.
Criminal and disciplinary accountability, along with permanent removal from office for those complicit, is not vengeance—it is a constitutional necessity. Only by settling accounts with the unpunished legacy of post-communism, now revived in Tusk’s liberal form of lawlessness, can Poland restore justice.
Without determination to carry out full accountability, Poland will never become a truly just and functional state. The reconstruction of the rule of law must begin at its foundations—ensuring that courts can never again be used as instruments of political repression.
Marcin Romanowski is a Doctor of Law, university lecturer, former Deputy Minister of Justice in the Law and Justice government, currently a Member of the Polish Parliament in exile in Hungary and Director of the Hungarian-Polish Institute of Freedom in Budapest
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