Jo Harper<\/p>\n
20 February 2026\u2022Update: 20 February 2026<\/p>\n
WARSAW<\/p>\n
Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a key government-backed bill Thursday reforming the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), dealing a blow to the ruling coalition\u2019s efforts to overhaul Poland\u2019s justice system after years of rule-of-law disputes with the European Union.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki rejected the bill on the grounds that it would undermine judicial stability and open the door to political interference in the courts. <\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot sign a law which, under the slogan of restoring the rule of law, in fact introduces a new stage of chaos and opens the way to political influence over judges,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He argued that the legislation would lead to the \u201csegregation of judges\u201d and violate the constitution.<\/p>\n
The veto highlights the ongoing institutional standoff between Poland\u2019s president and Prime Minister Donald Tusk\u2019s pro-EU government, which has pledged to restore judicial independence and unlock EU funds frozen over rule-of-law concerns.<\/p>\n
The veto had been widely expected, as the president has regularly criticized the justice reforms pursued by the governing coalition and Justice Minister Waldemar Zurek, whom he recently described as a \u201clegal terrorist\u201d in a television interview.<\/p>\n
The vetoed bill was designed to change the composition and functioning of the KRS, the body responsible for nominating judges. <\/p>\n
The government argues that reform is necessary to reverse changes introduced under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) party government, which critics say politicized the judiciary and weakened its independence.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki rejected that reasoning, insisting that judges appointed under previous rules cannot be divided into categories such as \u201cnew\u201d or \u201cold\u201d judges. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Polish legal order, there are no \u2018neo\u2019 or \u2018paleo\u2019 judges,\u201d he said, adding that questioning their status could cast doubt over millions of court rulings.<\/p>\n
He also stressed that appointing judges is an exclusive constitutional prerogative of the president and cannot be reviewed by the government or justice minister.<\/p>\n
Under Poland\u2019s constitution, parliament can override a presidential veto only with a three-fifths majority, which the governing coalition currently lacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jo Harper 20 February 2026\u2022Update: 20 February 2026 WARSAW Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a key government-backed bill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[136],"tags":[279,416,44451,5676,44450,402,11862,248],"class_list":["post-79059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-karol-nawrocki","tag-donald-tusk","tag-eu","tag-judicial-appointments","tag-judicial-reform","tag-justice-system","tag-karol-nawrocki","tag-national-council-of-the-judiciary","tag-poland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116607760944640883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}