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HRF classifies Poland as democratic.
Poland is a semi-presidential republic in Central Europe that re-emerged as a sovereign democratic state in 1989 after the collapse of communist rule and the rise of the Solidarity movement. Poland consolidated its democracy through a market-oriented transformation in the 1990s, joining NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. The country has a dual executive: the president, directly elected and endowed with powers such as a legislative veto and command over the armed forces, serves as head of state, while the prime minister and Council of Ministers are responsible for day-to-day governance and are accountable to the bicameral Parliament (Sejm and Senate). The highly competitive October 2023 parliamentary elections ended the populist Law and Justice Party’s (PiS) 8-year term in power, characterized by a sustained and systematic erosion of democracy. Since 2023, Poland has been governed by a coalition of parties, including the Civic Coalition (KO, formerly Civic Platform), Third Way, and The Left led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, while the presidency is now held by Karol Nawrocki, supported by the now-opposition PiS camp.
The elections in Poland remain largely free and fair. The KO-led government has not unfairly excluded any genuine, mainstream opposition parties or candidates from participating in elections. While the current authorities have not significantly obstructed opposition campaigning and have avoided the extensive state-backed advantages previously associated with the PiS administration, notable shortcomings persist, particularly in the form of politically skewed public media coverage and weak oversight of campaign conduct and financing. Despite these deficiencies, electoral competition remains equal, and opposition forces continue to retain a realistic ability to secure victory in national elections.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public are largely free to openly criticize or challenge the government. The KO-led authorities have not unfairly closed independent or dissenting organizations, nor have they systematically obstructed their activities. While the government has refrained from heavy-handed manipulation of media coverage in its favor and has moved to dismantle political control over public broadcasters inherited from the PiS era, some of these corrective measures (most notably the replacement of public media management in late 2023) have drawn criticism for their questionable legal basis. Public demonstrations continue to occur frequently and without systematic repression, including large-scale protests in recent years, although monitoring groups report that certain movements, particularly those advocating for women’s rights and LGBTQI+ rights, have at times been subject to selective and disproportionate policing.
Under the KO-led government, Poland’s institutions are somewhat independent, but remain constrained by reforms implemented under PiS. Since taking office after the October 2023 parliamentary elections, the KO-led government has alleviated some of the most damaging effects of PiS’s institutional capture, but presidential vetoes and the continued dominance of PiS-aligned judges, including in the Constitutional Tribunal and among thousands of so-called “neo-judges,” judges appointed or promoted through a politicized judicial appointment process introduced under PiS, have blocked any meaningful institutional reform.
The elections in Poland remain largely free and fair. The KO-led government has not unfairly excluded any genuine, mainstream opposition parties or candidates from participating in elections. While the current authorities have not significantly obstructed opposition campaigning and have avoided the extensive state-backed advantages previously associated with the PiS administration, notable shortcomings persist, particularly in the form of politically skewed public media coverage and weak oversight of campaign conduct and financing. Despite these deficiencies, electoral competition remains equal, and opposition forces continue to retain a realistic ability to secure victory in national elections.
The government has not unfairly barred any real, mainstream opposition party or candidate from competing, but the former PiS-led governments have enjoyed certain campaign advantages to varying degrees, namely heavy overrepresentation in the media, the abuse of administrative resources, and the circumvention of campaign spending regulations to skew electoral competition in their favor. Despite this, elections have remained competitive.
The Polish government has not unfairly barred a mainstream opposition party from competing in elections. The two main parties, PiS and KO, have dominated politics since the 2000s, each spending long periods in government. After ruling from 2015 to 2023, PiS lost the 2023 parliamentary elections to a unified opposition coalition of KO, Third Way, and The Left, helped by a record 74% turnout. Although PiS moved into opposition, it regained the presidency in 2025, when its aligned candidate Karol Nawrocki won with 50.9% of the vote against Rafał Trzaskowski’s 49.1%. International observers, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), noted that the most recent 2023 parliamentary and 2025 presidential elections were professionally conducted and offered voters a genuine choice, but also noted significant problems, including strong media bias and misuse of public resources.
The KO-led Polish government has not significantly hindered the electoral campaigns of mainstream opposition parties and candidates, even though public broadcasters under both PiS- and KO-led governments have shown politically skewed coverage during the 2023 and 2025 election campaigns. Specifically, during the 2025 presidential election, held while the KO was in government, public broadcasters focused disproportionately on the PiS-aligned candidate Karol Nawrocki, with most of this coverage being overtly negative. Nawrocki received most of the public broadcasters’ attention, 33 to 35% in the first round and 53% in the second, but almost all of it was negative, while KO candidate Rafał Trzaskowski received 18 to 20% and then 41 to 47%, mostly in positive or neutral coverage. The OSCE concluded that public broadcasters had again “abandoned their public service mandate.” Still, this skewed coverage has not prevented Nawrocki from winning elections. This continued a pattern of media abuse under the PiS-led government, which benefited from such heavy overrepresentation in public media that the OSCE concluded broadcasters had “failed in [their] legal duty to provide balanced coverage” during the 2020 presidential campaign and similarly affected the 2023 parliamentary election. Despite this, overall media pluralism slightly improved after the 2023 change of government, and the skewed coverage under both KO- and PiS-aligned administrations has not prevented elections from remaining competitive.
The KO-led Polish government has not enjoyed significant and unfair campaign advantages. However, the electoral process was weakened by persistent structural shortcomings in the regulation and oversight of campaigning. Specifically, during the 2025 presidential election, OSCE reported that public officials at various levels and across the political spectrum “frequently campaigned on behalf of candidates,” blurring official duties and campaign activities, and that inadequate campaign conduct and finance regulations enabled extensive third-party involvement, poor transparency, and weak oversight. That said, this represented an improvement from 2023. That year, the PiS-led government further blurred the line between governing and campaigning by calling a referendum on the day of the parliamentary elections, which amplified its populist campaign messages (on immigration and social benefits, among others) and enabled some circumvention of campaign-spending regulations, as referendum information efforts face minimal regulation and allow state bodies and politically aligned businesses to channel substantial resources into promoting the ruling party’s narratives. Despite these shortcomings clearly affecting the electoral playing field, elections in Poland remained competitive.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public are largely free to openly criticize or challenge the government. The KO-led authorities have not unfairly closed independent or dissenting organizations, nor have they systematically obstructed their activities. While the government has refrained from heavy-handed manipulation of media coverage in its favor and has moved to dismantle political control over public broadcasters inherited from the PiS era, some of these corrective measures (most notably the replacement of public media management in late 2023) have drawn criticism for their questionable legal basis. Public demonstrations continue to occur frequently and without systematic repression, including large-scale protests in recent years, although monitoring groups report that certain movements, particularly those advocating for women’s rights and LGBTQI+ rights, have at times been subject to selective and disproportionate policing.
The KO-led government of Poland has not unfairly shut down independent or dissenting organizations, and Polish civil society organizations (CSOs) generally operate without undue interference. Poland hosts over one hundred thousand CSOs working freely across areas such as public health, climate protection, human rights, humanitarian assistance, sport, culture, and education. The KO-led government has taken steps to improve the legal and political environment for CSOs by reopening institutional dialogue with civil society and initiating investigations into past surveillance and abuses against activists under the PiS-led administration, which had targeted CSOs and dissenting organizations through arbitrary funding cuts and smear campaigns. Despite past efforts undertaken by PiS, civil society in Poland remains robust.
The government has not seriously intimidated or obstructed the work of independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public. The KO-led government of Poland has reduced many of the forms of pressure that characterized the PiS period, including verbal attacks on journalists and the use of so-called Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs) against independent media. Even during the PiS-led administration, the efficiency of SLAPPS in curbing the operation of independent media has been largely ineffective, since most of these lawsuits failed in court. As a result, the privately owned and independent media continue to operate freely and, under the KO-led government, no systematic campaign of censorship, closures, or legal harassment has been observed.
The KO-led government has not heavily manipulated media coverage in its favor, but it has implemented measures aimed at dismantling PiS-era political control over public media that have been widely criticised as legally questionable. Since coming to power in 2023, the KO-led coalition has taken limited steps to reverse the erosion of media independence brought about by its predecessor, particularly in the public broadcasting sector, where the former PiS-led government had turned state media into a partisan outlet. For example, in December 2023, the KO-aligned Minister of Culture unilaterally dismissed the boards of public outlets, including TVP, Polish Radio, and the Polish Press Agency, bypassing the PiS-established National Broadcasting Council. The public TVP Info channel was also taken off the air for about a week until the new leadership agreed on programming changes to alleviate the partisan bias. However, these measures were ruled unconstitutional by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, controlled by PiS-aligned judges, and prompted criticism from legal experts and media freedom civil society organisations, even as the government argued it was necessary to depoliticize captured public media. Still, notwithstanding the legal controversy and temporary disruption to news services, the post-takeover changes have not resulted in a renewed pattern of sustained, overtly pro-government propaganda in public broadcasting comparable to that observed under the previous PiS administration. Nevertheless, reports of skewed coverage of candidates by public broadcasters during the 2025 presidential election, including disproportionate and politically imbalanced airtime and extensive negative coverage of an opposition candidate, indicate that political influence over public media remains a concern and warrants continued monitoring.
Finally, the KO-led government has not seriously and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings, which continue to occur routinely. For example, in July 2025, large-scale anti-immigration protests opposing the government’s migration approach were held in more than 80 cities across Poland, alongside counter-demonstrations by left-wing and pro-refugee groups. Both the protests and counter-protests were permitted to proceed. At the same time, the organization ARTICLE 19, which monitors freedom of expression, and other observers report that certain groups, particularly women’s rights and LGBTQI+ activists, have at times faced disproportionate and selective police responses during their protests.
Under the KO-led government, Poland’s institutions are somewhat independent, but remain constrained by reforms implemented under PiS. Since taking office after the October 2023 parliamentary elections, the KO-led government has alleviated some of the most damaging effects of PiS’s institutional capture, but presidential vetoes and the continued dominance of PiS-aligned judges, including in the Constitutional Tribunal and among thousands of so-called “neo-judges,” judges appointed or promoted through a politicized judicial appointment process introduced under PiS, have blocked any meaningful institutional reform.
The KO-led government has yet to repair a judicial system whose independence and operational effectiveness were weakened under PiS to the point that cases or issues challenging PiS-aligned views or policies are often dismissed. After the 2023 parliamentary elections, the KO-led government made some improvements in judicial independence and accountability, but it has not been able to structurally undo PiS’s capture of key institutions, including the appointment of thousands of so-called “neo-judges” through a process widely regarded as constitutionally compromised and the entrenchment of the Constitutional Tribunal dominated by PiS-aligned judges.
Specifically, the KO-led government has adopted an Action Plan to restore the rule of law and institutional accountability and has drafted bills to undo PiS-era politicisation of the judiciary. These include proposals to depoliticise the National Council of the Judiciary, which selects and recommends judges, reform the PiS-controlled Constitutional Tribunal, and address the status of “neo-judges”. However, as of December 2025, most of these reforms remain stalled, as key bills have been blocked or delayed by presidential vetoes, first under PiS President Andrzej Duda and then, after the June 2025 election, under PiS-backed President Karol Nawrocki, who has already signaled he will refuse to promote judges who opposed PiS-era changes.
Similarly, the KO-led government is yet to implement meaningful reform to dismantle the system that allows for retaliation against judges who rule against PiS interests. While it has begun dismantling elements of the biased disciplinary regime by ending many cases against independent judges and removing some PiS-appointed court presidents, the core institutional framework remains largely intact. Under PiS, new chambers were created within the Supreme Court, including the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs and the Disciplinary Chamber, and these were staffed largely by PiS-vetted appointees. These bodies were given authority over disciplinary proceedings against judges, extraordinary appeals, and election disputes, ensuring that politically sensitive cases were channelled into institutions dominated by PiS-aligned judges. This system was further reinforced by the so-called “muzzle law” of late 2019, which was designed to silence judges who questioned PiS’s judicial reforms or the legitimacy of “neo-judges,” and introduced penalties such as suspensions, salary reductions, forced transfers to remote courts, and the threat of dismissal. As a result, these mechanisms have enabled the PiS’s retaliation against dissenting judges, who have since faced disciplinary action for arbitrary reasons such as correctly applying relevant EU laws in their judgments (Judge Alina Czubienak) and referring questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (Judge Igor Tuleya and Judge Ewa Maciejewska).
Finally, the KO-led governing coalition has made only limited progress in repairing executive institutions whose independence was weakened during the PiS era, which enabled PiS to repress criticism or retaliate against those who openly opposed its policies. In the nation’s prosecution service, the KO-led government dismissed PiS-appointed national public prosecutor Dariusz Barski in January 2024 and appointed Dariusz Korneluk to the post in March 2024. These steps reduced PiS-era influence at the top of Poland’s prosecution service, though broader personnel changes have proceeded slowly. Under the PiS-led government, the National Public Prosecutor’s Office was used to prosecute political opponents and silence critics of PiS, creating a chilling effect. Between 2015 and 2023, prosecutors conducted widespread politically driven investigations targeting opposition politicians, activists, and journalists, while also protecting PiS officials and allies by blocking inquiries into corruption and abuses of power. For example, courts have sentenced journalists for defamation following lawsuits by individuals with close ties to the PiS, as evident in the case of journalist Tomasz Piatek, who received 8 months of community service for exploring one of the party’s patrons’ connections to Russia.
Furthermore, the KO-led government has also repeatedly pledged to separate the offices of the Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General, an institutional arrangement that concentrated prosecutorial power under the governing authority and was a key mechanism of PiS-era politicization, but, as of December 2025, this separation has not yet been implemented, and the draft bill is still under consultation.
HRF classifies Poland as democratic.
Poland is a semi-presidential republic in Central Europe that re-emerged as a sovereign democratic state in 1989 after the collapse of communist rule and the rise of the Solidarity movement. Poland consolidated its democracy through a market-oriented transformation in the 1990s, joining NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. The country has a dual executive: the president, directly elected and endowed with powers such as a legislative veto and command over the armed forces, serves as head of state, while the prime minister and Council of Ministers are responsible for day-to-day governance and are accountable to the bicameral Parliament (Sejm and Senate). The highly competitive October 2023 parliamentary elections ended the populist Law and Justice Party’s (PiS) 8-year term in power, characterized by a sustained and systematic erosion of democracy. Since 2023, Poland has been governed by a coalition of parties, including the Civic Coalition (KO, formerly Civic Platform), Third Way, and The Left led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, while the presidency is now held by Karol Nawrocki, supported by the now-opposition PiS camp.
The elections in Poland remain largely free and fair. The KO-led government has not unfairly excluded any genuine, mainstream opposition parties or candidates from participating in elections. While the current authorities have not significantly obstructed opposition campaigning and have avoided the extensive state-backed advantages previously associated with the PiS administration, notable shortcomings persist, particularly in the form of politically skewed public media coverage and weak oversight of campaign conduct and financing. Despite these deficiencies, electoral competition remains equal, and opposition forces continue to retain a realistic ability to secure victory in national elections.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public are largely free to openly criticize or challenge the government. The KO-led authorities have not unfairly closed independent or dissenting organizations, nor have they systematically obstructed their activities. While the government has refrained from heavy-handed manipulation of media coverage in its favor and has moved to dismantle political control over public broadcasters inherited from the PiS era, some of these corrective measures (most notably the replacement of public media management in late 2023) have drawn criticism for their questionable legal basis. Public demonstrations continue to occur frequently and without systematic repression, including large-scale protests in recent years, although monitoring groups report that certain movements, particularly those advocating for women’s rights and LGBTQI+ rights, have at times been subject to selective and disproportionate policing.
Under the KO-led government, Poland’s institutions are somewhat independent, but remain constrained by reforms implemented under PiS. Since taking office after the October 2023 parliamentary elections, the KO-led government has alleviated some of the most damaging effects of PiS’s institutional capture, but presidential vetoes and the continued dominance of PiS-aligned judges, including in the Constitutional Tribunal and among thousands of so-called “neo-judges,” judges appointed or promoted through a politicized judicial appointment process introduced under PiS, have blocked any meaningful institutional reform.
The elections in Poland remain largely free and fair. The KO-led government has not unfairly excluded any genuine, mainstream opposition parties or candidates from participating in elections. While the current authorities have not significantly obstructed opposition campaigning and have avoided the extensive state-backed advantages previously associated with the PiS administration, notable shortcomings persist, particularly in the form of politically skewed public media coverage and weak oversight of campaign conduct and financing. Despite these deficiencies, electoral competition remains equal, and opposition forces continue to retain a realistic ability to secure victory in national elections.
The government has not unfairly barred any real, mainstream opposition party or candidate from competing, but the former PiS-led governments have enjoyed certain campaign advantages to varying degrees, namely heavy overrepresentation in the media, the abuse of administrative resources, and the circumvention of campaign spending regulations to skew electoral competition in their favor. Despite this, elections have remained competitive.
The Polish government has not unfairly barred a mainstream opposition party from competing in elections. The two main parties, PiS and KO, have dominated politics since the 2000s, each spending long periods in government. After ruling from 2015 to 2023, PiS lost the 2023 parliamentary elections to a unified opposition coalition of KO, Third Way, and The Left, helped by a record 74% turnout. Although PiS moved into opposition, it regained the presidency in 2025, when its aligned candidate Karol Nawrocki won with 50.9% of the vote against Rafał Trzaskowski’s 49.1%. International observers, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), noted that the most recent 2023 parliamentary and 2025 presidential elections were professionally conducted and offered voters a genuine choice, but also noted significant problems, including strong media bias and misuse of public resources.
The KO-led Polish government has not significantly hindered the electoral campaigns of mainstream opposition parties and candidates, even though public broadcasters under both PiS- and KO-led governments have shown politically skewed coverage during the 2023 and 2025 election campaigns. Specifically, during the 2025 presidential election, held while the KO was in government, public broadcasters focused disproportionately on the PiS-aligned candidate Karol Nawrocki, with most of this coverage being overtly negative. Nawrocki received most of the public broadcasters’ attention, 33 to 35% in the first round and 53% in the second, but almost all of it was negative, while KO candidate Rafał Trzaskowski received 18 to 20% and then 41 to 47%, mostly in positive or neutral coverage. The OSCE concluded that public broadcasters had again “abandoned their public service mandate.” Still, this skewed coverage has not prevented Nawrocki from winning elections. This continued a pattern of media abuse under the PiS-led government, which benefited from such heavy overrepresentation in public media that the OSCE concluded broadcasters had “failed in [their] legal duty to provide balanced coverage” during the 2020 presidential campaign and similarly affected the 2023 parliamentary election. Despite this, overall media pluralism slightly improved after the 2023 change of government, and the skewed coverage under both KO- and PiS-aligned administrations has not prevented elections from remaining competitive.
The KO-led Polish government has not enjoyed significant and unfair campaign advantages. However, the electoral process was weakened by persistent structural shortcomings in the regulation and oversight of campaigning. Specifically, during the 2025 presidential election, OSCE reported that public officials at various levels and across the political spectrum “frequently campaigned on behalf of candidates,” blurring official duties and campaign activities, and that inadequate campaign conduct and finance regulations enabled extensive third-party involvement, poor transparency, and weak oversight. That said, this represented an improvement from 2023. That year, the PiS-led government further blurred the line between governing and campaigning by calling a referendum on the day of the parliamentary elections, which amplified its populist campaign messages (on immigration and social benefits, among others) and enabled some circumvention of campaign-spending regulations, as referendum information efforts face minimal regulation and allow state bodies and politically aligned businesses to channel substantial resources into promoting the ruling party’s narratives. Despite these shortcomings clearly affecting the electoral playing field, elections in Poland remained competitive.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public are largely free to openly criticize or challenge the government. The KO-led authorities have not unfairly closed independent or dissenting organizations, nor have they systematically obstructed their activities. While the government has refrained from heavy-handed manipulation of media coverage in its favor and has moved to dismantle political control over public broadcasters inherited from the PiS era, some of these corrective measures (most notably the replacement of public media management in late 2023) have drawn criticism for their questionable legal basis. Public demonstrations continue to occur frequently and without systematic repression, including large-scale protests in recent years, although monitoring groups report that certain movements, particularly those advocating for women’s rights and LGBTQI+ rights, have at times been subject to selective and disproportionate policing.
The KO-led government of Poland has not unfairly shut down independent or dissenting organizations, and Polish civil society organizations (CSOs) generally operate without undue interference. Poland hosts over one hundred thousand CSOs working freely across areas such as public health, climate protection, human rights, humanitarian assistance, sport, culture, and education. The KO-led government has taken steps to improve the legal and political environment for CSOs by reopening institutional dialogue with civil society and initiating investigations into past surveillance and abuses against activists under the PiS-led administration, which had targeted CSOs and dissenting organizations through arbitrary funding cuts and smear campaigns. Despite past efforts undertaken by PiS, civil society in Poland remains robust.
The government has not seriously intimidated or obstructed the work of independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public. The KO-led government of Poland has reduced many of the forms of pressure that characterized the PiS period, including verbal attacks on journalists and the use of so-called Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs) against independent media. Even during the PiS-led administration, the efficiency of SLAPPS in curbing the operation of independent media has been largely ineffective, since most of these lawsuits failed in court. As a result, the privately owned and independent media continue to operate freely and, under the KO-led government, no systematic campaign of censorship, closures, or legal harassment has been observed.
The KO-led government has not heavily manipulated media coverage in its favor, but it has implemented measures aimed at dismantling PiS-era political control over public media that have been widely criticised as legally questionable. Since coming to power in 2023, the KO-led coalition has taken limited steps to reverse the erosion of media independence brought about by its predecessor, particularly in the public broadcasting sector, where the former PiS-led government had turned state media into a partisan outlet. For example, in December 2023, the KO-aligned Minister of Culture unilaterally dismissed the boards of public outlets, including TVP, Polish Radio, and the Polish Press Agency, bypassing the PiS-established National Broadcasting Council. The public TVP Info channel was also taken off the air for about a week until the new leadership agreed on programming changes to alleviate the partisan bias. However, these measures were ruled unconstitutional by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, controlled by PiS-aligned judges, and prompted criticism from legal experts and media freedom civil society organisations, even as the government argued it was necessary to depoliticize captured public media. Still, notwithstanding the legal controversy and temporary disruption to news services, the post-takeover changes have not resulted in a renewed pattern of sustained, overtly pro-government propaganda in public broadcasting comparable to that observed under the previous PiS administration. Nevertheless, reports of skewed coverage of candidates by public broadcasters during the 2025 presidential election, including disproportionate and politically imbalanced airtime and extensive negative coverage of an opposition candidate, indicate that political influence over public media remains a concern and warrants continued monitoring.
Finally, the KO-led government has not seriously and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings, which continue to occur routinely. For example, in July 2025, large-scale anti-immigration protests opposing the government’s migration approach were held in more than 80 cities across Poland, alongside counter-demonstrations by left-wing and pro-refugee groups. Both the protests and counter-protests were permitted to proceed. At the same time, the organization ARTICLE 19, which monitors freedom of expression, and other observers report that certain groups, particularly women’s rights and LGBTQI+ activists, have at times faced disproportionate and selective police responses during their protests.
Under the KO-led government, Poland’s institutions are somewhat independent, but remain constrained by reforms implemented under PiS. Since taking office after the October 2023 parliamentary elections, the KO-led government has alleviated some of the most damaging effects of PiS’s institutional capture, but presidential vetoes and the continued dominance of PiS-aligned judges, including in the Constitutional Tribunal and among thousands of so-called “neo-judges,” judges appointed or promoted through a politicized judicial appointment process introduced under PiS, have blocked any meaningful institutional reform.
The KO-led government has yet to repair a judicial system whose independence and operational effectiveness were weakened under PiS to the point that cases or issues challenging PiS-aligned views or policies are often dismissed. After the 2023 parliamentary elections, the KO-led government made some improvements in judicial independence and accountability, but it has not been able to structurally undo PiS’s capture of key institutions, including the appointment of thousands of so-called “neo-judges” through a process widely regarded as constitutionally compromised and the entrenchment of the Constitutional Tribunal dominated by PiS-aligned judges.
Specifically, the KO-led government has adopted an Action Plan to restore the rule of law and institutional accountability and has drafted bills to undo PiS-era politicisation of the judiciary. These include proposals to depoliticise the National Council of the Judiciary, which selects and recommends judges, reform the PiS-controlled Constitutional Tribunal, and address the status of “neo-judges”. However, as of December 2025, most of these reforms remain stalled, as key bills have been blocked or delayed by presidential vetoes, first under PiS President Andrzej Duda and then, after the June 2025 election, under PiS-backed President Karol Nawrocki, who has already signaled he will refuse to promote judges who opposed PiS-era changes.
Similarly, the KO-led government is yet to implement meaningful reform to dismantle the system that allows for retaliation against judges who rule against PiS interests. While it has begun dismantling elements of the biased disciplinary regime by ending many cases against independent judges and removing some PiS-appointed court presidents, the core institutional framework remains largely intact. Under PiS, new chambers were created within the Supreme Court, including the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs and the Disciplinary Chamber, and these were staffed largely by PiS-vetted appointees. These bodies were given authority over disciplinary proceedings against judges, extraordinary appeals, and election disputes, ensuring that politically sensitive cases were channelled into institutions dominated by PiS-aligned judges. This system was further reinforced by the so-called “muzzle law” of late 2019, which was designed to silence judges who questioned PiS’s judicial reforms or the legitimacy of “neo-judges,” and introduced penalties such as suspensions, salary reductions, forced transfers to remote courts, and the threat of dismissal. As a result, these mechanisms have enabled the PiS’s retaliation against dissenting judges, who have since faced disciplinary action for arbitrary reasons such as correctly applying relevant EU laws in their judgments (Judge Alina Czubienak) and referring questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (Judge Igor Tuleya and Judge Ewa Maciejewska).
Finally, the KO-led governing coalition has made only limited progress in repairing executive institutions whose independence was weakened during the PiS era, which enabled PiS to repress criticism or retaliate against those who openly opposed its policies. In the nation’s prosecution service, the KO-led government dismissed PiS-appointed national public prosecutor Dariusz Barski in January 2024 and appointed Dariusz Korneluk to the post in March 2024. These steps reduced PiS-era influence at the top of Poland’s prosecution service, though broader personnel changes have proceeded slowly. Under the PiS-led government, the National Public Prosecutor’s Office was used to prosecute political opponents and silence critics of PiS, creating a chilling effect. Between 2015 and 2023, prosecutors conducted widespread politically driven investigations targeting opposition politicians, activists, and journalists, while also protecting PiS officials and allies by blocking inquiries into corruption and abuses of power. For example, courts have sentenced journalists for defamation following lawsuits by individuals with close ties to the PiS, as evident in the case of journalist Tomasz Piatek, who received 8 months of community service for exploring one of the party’s patrons’ connections to Russia.
Furthermore, the KO-led government has also repeatedly pledged to separate the offices of the Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General, an institutional arrangement that concentrated prosecutorial power under the governing authority and was a key mechanism of PiS-era politicization, but, as of December 2025, this separation has not yet been implemented, and the draft bill is still under consultation.
