Poland’s nationalist President Karol Nawrocki has vetoed a bill reforming the way judges are appointed, he said on Thursday, prolonging the deadlock over reforms that are central to the programme of his centrist rival Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Tusk’s coalition government came to power in 2023, vowing to roll back judicial reforms implemented by its nationalist predecessor Law and Justice (PiS), which critics including the European Union said politicised the way judges are appointed and disciplined.
Their efforts were initially stymied by PiS ally President Andrzej Duda, whose term ended in 2025, and Nawrocki, who was also backed by PiS, has also opposed the government’s reforms.
The most significant change in the bill was the removal of parliament’s authority to elect members of the National Council of the Judiciary, which appoints judges. Instead, its members would have been chosen by judges themselves.
However, PiS opposes any reform that would call into question the legitimacy of judges appointed under the system they introduced, saying it would cause chaos in the judicial system.
“The act introduces segregation of judges and places the justice system in the hands of political interest groups,” Nawrocki said in a recorded statement. “I strongly oppose dividing judges into better and worse.”
However, the government accused Nawrocki of deepening the disarray in the judicial system they say PiS’s reforms caused.