Poland's Constitutional Tribunal rules tobacco law amendment unconstitutional over parliamentary exclusion

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal declared the 2024 amendment to the law protecting health from tobacco products unconstitutional because two PiS deputies, Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, were arbitrarily denied access to vote. The court found that the procedural breach – the exclusion ordered by then Sejm speaker Szymon Hołownia – violated the principle of legality and the required composition of the Sejm, rendering the law’s adoption invalid. The ruling stressed that the defect lay in the voting process, not in the substantive provisions of the law, and suspended the amendment’s effect for 18 months from the announcement of the verdict. President Andrzej Duda had challenged the law on these grounds. The decision was split, with two judges filing dissenting opinions. The amendment had passed 426 votes to 14, with two abstentions; the court noted that even with the two excluded deputies the result would not have changed.