/courtesy translation/
Warsaw, 2021
Dear Mr Speaker,
I would like to present this letter to you in a spirit of mutual respect, guided by concern for the
good of our common project, the European Union. As the Speaker of the Polish Sejm I have
the duty to guard the Polish legal system, which comprises both the Constitution and EU
legislation that is in conformity with the Constitution. Settlement of disputes, not by arbitrary
means, but by building compromises achieved through debate conducted with respect for the
arguments of all states, is one of the foundations of the European Union. Such a debate is only
possible when it is underpinned by reliable information, and therefore I feel empowered and
obliged to present to you a set of documents concerning the judgment of the Polish
Constitutional Court of 7 October 2021. I considered it imperative to provide you with this
information because of the disturbing signals I received in Greece that the judgment of the
Constitutional Court would result in the denunciation by Poland of all the Treaties of the
European Union.
Firstly, it is necessary to emphasise that the Polish Constitutional Court has not declared any
provision of the Treaties establishing the European Union to be inconsistent with the Polish
Constitution. The ruling of the Court does not undermine a single provision to which Poland
and other states adhered when accessing the European Union. It was not the content of the
Treaties that the Constitutional Tribunal declared unconstitutional, but content that is not found
in the Treaties but has been generated by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has
thus gone beyond the scope of the competences granted by the Treaties.
In particular, the Polish Constitutional Court did not declare Article 1 or Article 4(3) of the
Treaty on European Union inconsistent with the Constitution, but these provisions were
inconsistent with the Constitution to the extent that they authorised Union bodies to act outside
the scope of competence granted to these bodies in the Treaties. Furthermore, the Court did not
declare unconstitutional Article 19(1) of the Treaty on European Union, but Article 19(1)
insofar as the Court of Justice of the European Union held that this provision implied the right
of national courts to disregard the provisions of the Constitution and to rule on the basis of non-
binding provisions. Finally, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal did not challenge either Article
19(1) or Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, but those provisions interpreted as
empowering Polish courts to review the legality of the procedure for the appointment of judges
by the President of Poland.
A careful reading of the ruling of the Polish Constitutional Court demonstrates unequivocally
and beyond any doubt that the Court did not even in the slightest degree question the content
of the Treaties, but declared statements that are not contained in the Treaties to be
unconstitutional. In practice, it was the Polish Constitutional Court by handing down its verdict
of 7 October 2021 that upheld the actual provisions of the Treaties and the will of the citizens
who had approved them in a referendum, defending the Treaties from being modified in a way