President Nawrocki Appoints Maria Szczepaniec as Head of Supreme Court’s Professional Liability Chamber

President Karol Nawrocki has officially appointed Judge Maria Szczepaniec as the new president of the Supreme Court’s Professional Liability Chamber, following a formal selection process involving the institution’s judicial assembly.

The Appointment Process

The Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland announced that the appointment was issued on July 9, in accordance with Article 15a of the Supreme Court Act. Under these regulations, the president selects the head of the Chamber from three candidates nominated by the assembly of judges assigned to the Professional Liability Chamber, after seeking the opinion of the First President of the Supreme Court.

The appointment ceremony took place on Thursday, attended by the First President of the Supreme Court, Zbigniew Kapiński, the President of the Constitutional Tribunal, Bogdan Święczkowski, and the heads of other Supreme Court chambers.

Background of the New President

Maria Szczepaniec was first appointed as a Supreme Court judge by President Andrzej Duda in 2018. She began adjudicating in the Professional Liability Chamber in 2022 and was nominated as a candidate for the chamber’s presidency late last year alongside judges Barbara Skoczowska and Tomasz Demendecki.

Controversies Surrounding the Chamber’s Status

The selection process faced criticism last October when the Supreme Court’s Juror Council appealed to the president not to appoint a “neo-judge”—a term referring to judges appointed by the National Council of the Judiciary after 2017. Simultaneously, Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek requested the exclusion of six judges, including Szczepaniec, from performing judicial functions within the chamber, citing concerns over their appointments.

The Professional Liability Chamber, which replaced the Disciplinary Chamber in July 2022, remains a subject of legal debate. In 2025, a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court’s Criminal Chamber ruled that, based on prior EU Court of Justice jurisprudence and a 2020 resolution, the composition of the Professional Liability Chamber does not satisfy the requirements of an independent court due to the status of judges appointed after 2017.