All judges of the Constitutional Tribunal were elected in accordance to the law, the tribunal’s president has argued after the opposition announced resolutions on removing the ones who were allegedly elected illegally.

Back in 2015, two weeks before the general election, the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, elected five new judges to replace outgoing ones. But, the new President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the Law and Justice (PiS) party refused to let any of them take their oaths of office. Just two weeks after PiS won the elections it nominated its own group of five judges who were immediately sworn in by Duda.

On Thursday morning, Borys Budka, co-chair of the main opposition party Civic Platform (PO), said that resolutions on invalidating the election of the Constitutional Tribunal judges, prepared by the opposition coalition, were ready.

Later on Thursday, Julia Przylebska, head of the Constitutional Tribunal, reacted to this statement during a Polish Radio 3 interview.

She said that she saw it “as a complete misunderstanding.”

“To become a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal, you must first be elected by parliament, then take an oath before the president, then go to the Tribunal and declare that you want to take up the duties of a judge. All judges were properly elected, took oaths and came to the Constitutional Tribunal,” Przylebska said.