The European Court of Human Rights has delivered on 5 February 2026 its judgment in Morawiec v. Poland (application no. 46238/20), concerning proceedings before the Disciplinary Chamber of the Polish Supreme Court that resulted in the lifting of a judge’s immunity from prosecution, her suspension from judicial duties, and a reduction of her salary.
The European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 6 § 1 (access to court), Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ms. Morawiec is a judge. Since 2018 she has been the President of the Judges’ Association Themis, which has publicly criticised the Government’s reforms affecting the judiciary.
The case concerns rulings by the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court (“the DCSC”) relating to Ms. Morawiec’s immunity from prosecution and to her suspension from judicial duties, which she argues were taken in reaction to her public criticisms of the judicial reforms and a successful civil action she had brought against the Minister of Justice in 2017.
The Court held, as it had in previous cases, that the DCSC was not a “tribunal established by law”. It found that the measures taken by the authorities to lift Ms. Morawiec’s immunity and to suspend her from judicial duties could be characterised as a strategy aimed at intimidating her and that those measures must have had a “chilling effect”, discouraging not only her, but also other judges from participating in public debate on legislative reforms.
