In a sweeping shake-up of the Polish judiciary, Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s center-left government has unveiled plans to demote or remove over 1,600 judges appointed during the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) era—an unprecedented move that’s already stirring legal and political controversy across Europe.
On April 11, Poland’s Ministry of Justice laid out its roadmap for dealing with over 2,500 judges who were appointed by President Andrzej Duda, often based on recommendations from a National Judicial Council (KRS) that critics—including the EU—say lacked independence from the PiS-led government.
Under the new proposal, the judges will be split into three groups based on how they were selected. Roughly 900 trainee judges who had no option but to go through the disputed KRS process will be allowed to keep their posts. Another 1,200 judges promoted by the KRS will be demoted—but not immediately. To avoid judicial chaos, they’ll stay in their roles for two more years before returning to their former positions.
The remaining 430 judges, many of whom transitioned into the judiciary from other legal careers, face a harsher fate: they’ll be stripped of their judicial roles altogether and either return to their previous professions or be reassigned as junior court officials.
Deputy Justice Minister Dariusz Mazur confirmed that the legislation is ready to go and will be submitted to the incoming president after May’s general election, with hopes of enactment in early August.
But the plan has triggered fierce opposition. President Duda, a PiS ally, has already challenged the reform by submitting his own KRS proposal to the Constitutional Court—a body the current government refuses to acknowledge as legitimate, citing the allegedly unlawful appointment of three judges under the previous administration.
The Venice Commission, a legal advisory body to the Council of Europe, had previously warned against blanket removals, urging instead that any contested judges undergo individual reviews. But Mazur dismissed that approach as unworkable. “Verifying each judge one by one would take years,” he told local outlet Money.pl, warning that such delays could paralyze the justice system.
To cushion the blow, the Tusk government said that past rulings by the affected judges will remain valid, although there’ll be a 30-day window for litigants to request retrials if they object to the judge’s legitimacy.
The European Commission, which has previously sanctioned Poland over rule-of-law violations, has not yet publicly responded to the Tusk administration’s latest judicial overhaul.
For now, Warsaw’s new leadership is betting that a bold legal reset will restore trust in the judiciary. Whether it calms EU critics—or invites fresh legal battles—remains to be seen.
