Disputed Supreme Court chamber confirms Polish presidential election result

The chamber of Poland's Supreme Court tasked with overseeing elections – but whose legitimacy is rejected by the Polish government and European courts – has passed a resolution validating the result of last month's presidential vote in Poland, which was won by conservative opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki .

The decision was widely expected but has been mired in controversy over the miscounting of votes as well as questions over the status of the chamber itself, which was created by the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party that supported Nawrocki's presidential candidacy.

In its decision, the chamber of extraordinary oversight and public affairs noted that, while it had confirmed 21 cases of irregularities during the election, “the identified violations did not affect the result”, in the words of judge Maria Szczepaniec.

The Supreme Court's decision now paves the way for Nawrocki to be sworn into office in August, when he will replace outgoing President Andrzej Duda, whose second and final term is ending.

Poland's presidential election run-off took place on June 1. Nawrocki, the candidate supported by the national-conservative PiS, won 50.9% of the vote, defeating Rafał Trzaskowski – deputy leader of the centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland's main ruling party – who received 49.1%.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court had 30 days to consider complaints filed regarding the election (of which there were over 53,000 in total) and to confirm the validity of the result. As it met today to discuss the issue, supporters and opponents of Nawrocki gathered outside the court.

Some figures associated with the ruling coalition have suggested that, regardless of what happened today, next month's swearing-in ceremony should not go forward due to question marks over vote-counting and the legality of the chamber oversight.

However, last week, the speaker of parliament, Szymon Hołownia, whose role it is to call the assembly at which the new president will be sworn in, said that, despite doubts over the chamber's legality, he would accept its decision and swear in Nawrocki if the elections were declared valid.

The oversight chamber was established under the former government that was led by PiS, which is now Poland's main opposition party.

The chamber has been deemed illegitimate by both Polish and European courts due to being staffed entirely by judges nominated by the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS) after it was also overhauled by PiS in a manner that rendered it no longer independent of political influence .

The current government – ​​a broad coalition ranging from left to center-right that replaced PiS in office in December 2023 – also regards the chamber as illegal and has tried to remove its power to validate the presidential election result. That effort was vetoed by PiS-aligned President Duda.

Last week, a group of 28 Supreme Court judges from other chambers jointly signed a letter declaring that the oversight chamber is illegitimate and therefore cannot issue a valid ruling. Even two judges from the chamber itself have questioned its legitimacy (and they today issued opinions dissenting from the main resolution).

On Monday, Adam Bodnar, the justice minister and prosecutor general, made a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court to transfer the decision on the validity of the elections to another, legal, chamber. However, that request was denied.

Today, when Bodnar appeared before the oversight chamber, Szczepaniec pointed out that, after the 2023 parliamentary elections at which the current government came to power – and when Bodnar was himself elected to the Senate – he had not protested against the same chamber validating those results.

PiS has considered that the ruling coalition is only now disputing the legitimacy of the chamber because its candidate lost the presidential election. When Tusk's coalition won the 2023 elections – as well as local and European elections in 2024 – it did not mount such protests, they note.

Speaking before the chamber today, Bodnar also accused it of dismissing almost 50,000 complaints about the presidential elections without properly considering them.

As a result, “we still do not know what the election result is”, said Bodnar's deputy, Jacek Bilewicz.

He emphasized that they were not “trying to reverse the election result, but we are of the opinion that the Supreme Court did not take all actions [necessary] to bring us close to [knowing] the actual result.”

In response, Szczepaniec noted that the complaints to which Bodnar was referring – which were based on templates shared by members of the ruling coalition, who had encouraged Poles to file protests – were “identical in content and do not concern the protesting party's own specific and real interest.”

“The Supreme Court, after reviewing each protest, observes that the number of protests filed does not increase the weight of the single plaintiff included in them,” said Szczepaniec. “In such a case, the effect of scale is irrelevant.”

The oversight chamber's decision to confirm the validity of the elections was supported by the head of the National Electoral Commission (PKW), Sylwester Marciniak, who was appointed when PiS was in power.

Speaking before the chamber, Marciniak noted the PKW “did not find any violations of electoral law that could have influenced the voting results and the election outcome”, reports news website Wirtualna Polska.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl