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The Supreme Court (Polish: Sąd Najwyższy) of the Republic of Poland is the highest court in Polish general and military judicial system. Established pursuant to the article 175 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland ^[1], it has supremacy over all general and military courts as well as some powers in constitutional and election matters.

The legal framework

Existence of such a court is determined by the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, specifically by the Chapter VIII – Courts and Tribunals. More specific matters are regulated mostly by the Supreme Court Act, the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland Act and the Organization of Common Courts Act. Proceeding rules are located in Code of Civil Procedure and Code of Criminal Procedure.

Competences

The Supreme Court of Poland has following competences:

• To supervise all general and military courts jursidicton by:

1. being the last resort of appeal against judgments made by general or military courts
2. resolving legal issues, which gives rise to doubts, in the form of resolutions

• To examine electoral protests in all nationwide polls and decide whether an election or national referendum was carried out in a valid way;
• To supervise some decisions of lawyers’ professional self-governments;
• To serve as a second instance court in judges’ disciplinary cases;
• To present opinions on proposed bills and other normative acts.

Only the first function is given to the court by the constitution directly and cannot be revoked without an act of a constitutional rank. The catalogue of other competences is opened and any bill may add or take away the court's powers.

Composition

The court is divided into four chambers ^[2]:

• The Civil Law Chamber;
• The Criminal Law Chamber;
• The Labour Law, Social Security and Public Affairs Chamber;
• The Military Chamber.

Since 23.04.2015 the number of all judges is set by an oridnance of the President of Poland at 93 persons. There is no legally determined number of chambers' members. As of 31.12.2014 there were 86 judges of the court ^[3] and they were not divided equally between chambers; there were around thirty members in both civil and criminal chambers, while the smallest one, which was the military chamber, contained of only nine persons.

Presidents of the court

Every chamber has a president, who directs it's works. Above them there is the First President of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland, who directs the work of the court and represents it outside. The First President is appointed by the President of the Republic of Poland, who chooses between two candidates elected by the General Assembly of the Judges of Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland. The First President has a six-year term. In 2014 Małgorzata Gersdorf was appointed to this position ^[4]. Besides duties related to the Supreme Court, the First President has a right to start a judicial proceeding in front of The Constitutional Tribunal of Poland in order to control a normative act’s compliance with the constitution or to resolve disputes over the powers of central constitutional bodies. The First President is also, by the power of law, a president of another special judicial body – The State Tribunal.

Resolutions of Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland

The Supreme Court may issue resolutions in matters that create discrepancies in the jurisdiction and interpretation of law. A proposal of issuing such resolution can be made by: the First President of the Supreme Court of Poland, Commissioner for Human Rights, the Ombudsman for Children, the president of the Social Dialogue Council, the president of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, and the Financial Ombudsman. The First President of the court decides whether the decision should be made by seven judges of the court, a full chamber, two or three chambers combined or the full Supreme Court bench. Such resolutions become so called rules of law. Although those rules do not have any binding power outside of the Supreme Court, courts of lower instances usually start to rule in the same way when confronting cases, which are similar to the problem investigated by the Supreme Court in such form. A new resolution made by equal or greater bench of judges is needed in order to change a rule of law.

The seat of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland

The court is located on the Krasiński Square in Warsaw. It shares the building with Warsaw’s Appellate Court and Institute of National Remembrance. The construction of the new seat of the Polish Supreme Court started in 1996 and ended three years later. Main architects were Marek Budzyński and Zbigniew Badowski. The building’s most characteristic part is colonnade consisting of 67 columns with 87 classic legal maxims wrote in both Latin and Polish. Most of them come from ancient Roman law, but few were inspired by legal traditions of Poland. There are scales symbolizing Themis located at the heads of all columns. Over the entrance there are three caryatids symbolizing faith, hope and love, and a relief of polish eagle above them. All walls are covered in reflecting glass which creates an interesting visual effect. ^[5]

See also

• Supreme Administrative Court of Poland
• Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland
• State Tribunal (Poland)

References

External links

• Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland