Methodology and sources

What the site is based on

All texts and data come from ten research notes prepared on 30–31 October 2026 and a freshness check run on 31 October 2026 up to 04:00 CET. Every claim at the "For followers" and "Expert" levels carries a footnote to a specific source with its address and access date. If something was not in the research material, it is not on the site.

During the research some official servers (including those of the Sejm, the Tribunal, the President's Chancellery and the Council of Europe) could not be reached by the research tools. Some findings for 2025–2026 therefore rest on press reports, which are always attributed to the outlet.

Source hierarchy

1. Legislation and rulings: the Constitution, statutes (Journal of Laws, ELI, ISAP), Sejm resolutions (Monitor Polski), rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU).
2. Official documents: statements by the Chancellery of the Sejm, the President's Chancellery, the Tribunal, prosecutors and the police.
3. Opinions of international bodies: the Venice Commission (non-binding opinions) and the European Commission (Rule of Law Reports).
4. Expert and NGO analysis: always with the author named.
5. Press reports: always with the outlet named. A press report is never treated as proof of legal effect.

Labels for kinds of information

Each item in the data carries a label taken from the research notes:

• documented fact, legal provision, court finding: stated plainly, footnoted to the primary source;
• participant's claim: always attributed ("according to the President's Chancellery…", "the Sejm's position is…");
• interpretation: only at the Expert level, in an "Analysis" box;
• hypothesis: only on the Scenarios page, in a "Hypothesis" box;
• press report: attributed to the outlet, as "media reported that…";
• unverified / no data: never in the summary or at the Basics level; at levels 2–3 with an "unverified" badge; all such items are listed on "What we don't know yet".

How disputes are presented

• A court ruling is not the same as a politician's opinion. Rulings of the Tribunal (e.g. K 34/15, K 35/15), the ECtHR (e.g. Xero Flor) and the CJEU (C-448/23) are presented as findings. Where another body contests them, this is described as a dispute between named bodies.
• Positions are not averaged, and no winner is declared where the law is genuinely disputed.
• Every live dispute has a "who claims what" table: the claim, who makes it, the provisions invoked, the counter-position, what courts or the Venice Commission have said, and the current status.
• All actors are described with the same verbs ("states", "argues", "maintains") and in the same detail. Decisions of the 2015–2023 majority and of the coalition governing since 2023 are examined with the same rigour.
• On living persons and criminal or disciplinary matters we report only what was formally filed or decided, by whom and when, and add that no court has ruled where that is true.
• The site recommends nothing.

Neutral terminology

Evaluative terms such as „dublerzy” ("stand-in judges"), „zamach stanu” ("coup d'état"), "restoring the rule of law" or "substitute oath" appear only in quotation marks and attributed. In its own voice the site uses neutral descriptions. The full list is in the glossary.

Law in force at the time, and separate concepts

Each event is assessed under the law in force on its date (the 1985, 1997 and 2015 Acts, the 2016 Acts). We consistently distinguish election by the Sejm, the oath, the start of term, the service relationship, admission to adjudication, the office of President or Vice-President of the Tribunal, a break in duties, suspension, and disciplinary or criminal proceedings. We also distinguish party membership from the body that nominated a candidate, a club's vote and a recommendation.

The 15-seat map

For every day since 1985 each seat on the Tribunal has exactly one category: sworn in before the President, oath taken in the Sejm (status disputed), elected without an oath, or vacant. The total is always 15 (12 until 17 October 1997) and no one is counted twice. Persons whose status is contested carry a marker rather than a separate category. Seat numbering is a research convention without legal effect: the Sejm's resolutions do not say whose seat a judge fills.

Three levels

Every topic has three standalone texts: Basics (plain language, 400–800 words), For followers (names, dates, votes, positions) and Expert (provisions, case numbers, benches, dissents, interpretations, disputed points and evidentiary gaps). Your choice of level is remembered by your browser.

Quality checks

Every publication is automatically checked for:

• the 15-seat equation on every date;
• every footnote resolving to a source with an address or full citation and an access date;
• no unverified item at the Basics level or in the summary;
• complete Polish and English versions;
• working internal links;
• no evaluative terms outside quotation marks.

The content also went through separate editorial reviews: a sample fact audit, a neutrality review from the perspective of both sides of the dispute, a legal-precision review, a readability test of the Basics level, and a check of passages about living persons. The texts were prepared with the help of artificial-intelligence tools; the reviews also used them, in separate passes that did not write the texts under review.

Corrections

Errors are corrected promptly, and every significant change is logged with a date on Changelog and corrections. At launch the site offers no public contact channel.

Licence

Text and data: CC BY 4.0. Code: MIT. Datasets are on the Data page.