"A judge overseeing the Constitutional Tribunal's work." TK head Julia Przyłębska ends term

On Friday evening, Gazeta Wyborcza reported, citing unofficial information, that on December 6, the Tribunal judges were expected to select candidates for a new president, signaling that Przyłębska would have to step down.

Czarnek confirmed this report during an interview on RMF FM, stating that "Przyłębska ceases to be president."

"Madam President’s term as a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal is simply coming to an end. A Constitutional Tribunal judge's term lasts nine years. Her term ends in December, and a new president must be selected. There is nothing extraordinary about this," Czarnek explained. He added that "this is purely a formal matter."

He also reminded that, according to the regulations, the president of the Constitutional Tribunal is appointed by the president of Poland from the candidates presented by the General Assembly of Constitutional Tribunal Judges. "President Julia Przyłębska is stepping down as president, one way or another, because her nine-year term as a judge ends," he concluded. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, Julia Przyłębska suggested her resignation on Thursday during the ceremonial General Assembly of Constitutional Tribunal Judges, which was reviewing the Tribunal’s annual report. "Przyłębska allegedly mentioned that she was emotional because it was her last day," the newspaper reported.

On Monday, the Constitutional Tribunal published an announcement regarding Przyłębska’s status. The Tribunal confirmed that the current president, Julia Przyłębska, is "a judge overseeing the Constitutional Tribunal's work."

Her resignation from this position allowed her to call the General Assembly of Judges for December 6, where candidates for the new president will be chosen. According to the law, the General Assembly of Judges can be convened by the judge overseeing the Tribunal’s work, not the president.

The regulations state that from the moment of the vacancy until the appointment of a new president, the Tribunal’s work is managed by the judge with the longest cumulative tenure, both as a judge in the Tribunal and in previous positions, such as in lower courts or government administration.

Under the law, the president of the Constitutional Tribunal is appointed by the president of Poland from candidates presented by the General Assembly of Judges.

Asked about this on Monday, the Constitutional Tribunal's press office did not respond to the inquiry from PAP.

Upon stepping down from the position of president, Julia Przyłębska will be entitled to a severance payment, which is six times her monthly salary.

According to the 2016 law, a Constitutional Tribunal judge's base salary is five times the average national wage for the second quarter of the previous year. According to data from the Central Statistical Office (GUS), the average wage in the second quarter of 2023 was 7,005.76 zlotys.

Therefore, a Constitutional Tribunal judge’s salary currently exceeds 35,000 zlotys per month.

The president of the Constitutional Tribunal receives this base salary plus a functional allowance, calculated using a multiplier of 1.2. The monthly salary for the president of the Tribunal is therefore currently over 43,000 zlotys.

As stated in Article 40 of the Constitutional Tribunal Act, "If a judge of the Tribunal retires or is retired, they are entitled to a one-time severance payment amounting to six months of the salary they last received." This means that upon stepping down, Julia Przyłębska will receive over 260,000 zlotys as a severance payment.

Moreover, a retired judge of the Constitutional Tribunal is entitled to a pension amounting to 75% of their last monthly salary (excluding the functional allowance), meaning that after leaving her position as president, Przyłębska will receive around 26,000 zlotys per month.

According to information from the Constitutional Tribunal, the terms of three of its 15 judges will expire in December 2023: Julia Przyłębska on December 9, and Mariusz Muszyński and Piotr Pszczółkowski on December 3.

According to the Sejm's rules, candidates for the Constitutional Tribunal are proposed by the Sejm Presidium or a group of 50 MPs.

The motions are submitted to the Speaker of the Sejm within 30 days before the end of the term, or 21 days after the recall or confirmation of the expiration of the mandate. Currently, no MPs from any party have submitted candidates within the designated period for the three positions whose terms end in December.

Julia Przyłębska was elected as a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal on December 2, 2015.

A year later, on December 20, 2016, President Andrzej Duda entrusted her with the duties of the President of the Tribunal until a successor to Andrzej Rzepliński was appointed. The next day, on December 21, he appointed her as the new President of the Tribunal. However, legal experts and commentators had doubts about whether the election procedure was conducted in accordance with the law.

A dispute arose within the Constitutional Tribunal over the length of Julia Przyłębska’s term as President. At the end of 2022, some lawyers, including former judges of the Tribunal, pointed out that the term of President Julia Przyłębska expired after six years, on December 20, 2022, and that she would not be able to seek re-election for the position.

.At the beginning of January, six current judges of the Constitutional Tribunal (Wojciech Sych, Jakub Stelina, Mariusz Muszyński, Andrzej Zielonacki, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski, and Bogdan Święczkowski) sent a letter to Julia Przyłębska and President Andrzej Duda, demanding the convening of the General Assembly of Judges of the Constitutional Tribunal and the selection of candidates from which the president will appoint a new president. The authors expressed the belief that, according to the law on the organization and procedure of the Constitutional Tribunal, the term of the current president had come to an end.

Przyłębska, as well as Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and PiS President Jarosław Kaczyński, maintained that her term would end in December 2024.