The most dangerous thing about the justice system is not merely that a court can make a mistake.
The most dangerous thing is that a citizen may never find out whether their case was genuinely heard by an independent court, or by a judicial panel selected in a way convenient for someone more powerful.
Because a judgment does not begin when the ruling is announced.
A judgment begins much earlier.
It begins with who receives the case. Who becomes the judge assigned to it. Who presides over the panel. Who acts as the reporting judge. Who is excluded. Who is transferred to another division. Who suddenly stops handling the case file. When a new draw takes place. And whether the citizen has any real chance of finding out why any of this happened.
In theory, the composition of a court is an organisational matter.
In practice, the composition of a court can be the key to the entire case.
A judge should not be selected like a tool
The law is clear: cases are supposed to be assigned to judges randomly, within defined categories. A change in the composition of the court should be an exception, not a convenient method of managing the outcome.
This is the foundation of a fair trial.
A citizen must be certain that their case did not go to a judge “selected for the case”.
Not to a convenient judge.
Not to a predictable judge.
Not to a judge dependent on the court president, professional circles, politics, a network of influence or a phone call.
The case should reach the judge through a transparent procedure. Through random allocation. Through rules. Through a system that can be verified.
If that does not exist, the court ceases to be a place of justice and begins to resemble an office where someone arranges the chairs in advance.
The “judge on call” scandal showed how fragile judicial independence can be
One of the most symbolic examples was Ryszard Milewski, former President of the Regional Court in Gdańsk, associated with the Amber Gold case.
In 2012, a journalist posing as an employee of the Prime Minister’s Office spoke with the court president about the detention proceedings concerning Marcin P. The date of the hearing was discussed. The composition of the panel was discussed. And a question was asked: whether the judges were “trusted”.
The reply that became infamous was: “Please don’t worry.”
To be fair, this was a journalistic provocation, not a proven genuine phone call from the government. Nor was it proven that the outcome of the case was in fact manipulated.
But that is precisely why the case matters so much.
It showed something else.
It showed a willingness to discuss a specific case with a person claiming to represent the executive branch. It showed an atmosphere in which a court president appeared prepared to discuss dates, judges and the organisation of the case outside the normal procedure.
A disciplinary court later found that such conduct violated the principle of judicial independence and the dignity of judicial office. The Supreme Court increased the disciplinary penalty, and Milewski was transferred outside the Gdańsk appellate area.
This should have been a warning to the entire state.
You do not need to prove a bribe to destroy trust in the courts.
Sometimes a phone call is enough.
Sometimes willingness is enough.
Sometimes the mere impression that someone “at the top” can ask, and someone “in the court” can answer, is enough.
The Constitutional Tribunal and judicial composition as an instrument of influence
An even more serious problem appears where manipulation of judicial composition is not an isolated embarrassment, but begins to look like a method of managing an institution.
During Julia Przyłębska’s presidency of the Constitutional Tribunal, allegations were repeatedly raised over the years concerning changes to adjudicating panels and the appointment of reporting judges. Judges of the Tribunal warned that panels were being shaped arbitrarily. In one case, the Commissioner for Human Rights indicated that a judge had been replaced without a legal basis and without written notification to a participant in the proceedings.
This is no longer a minor technical adjustment.
It raises the question of whether a citizen, organisation, business or state authority appears before a court constituted according to law, or before a panel arranged according to the needs of the moment.
In an ordinary court, a citizen may fear that someone will influence a judge.
Before the Tribunal, a citizen may fear something else: that the panel is selected first, and only then does the “independent” ruling follow.
If the panel is rigged, the judgment may be nothing more than the final act of a decision made earlier.
A judicial lottery that cannot be trusted on word alone
The Random Case Allocation System was supposed to be the answer to manual control.
Instead of a head of division assigning cases at their own discretion, there was supposed to be an algorithm. Instead of suspicions that a case had gone to the “right” judge, there was supposed to be a draw. Instead of personal arrangements — automation.
That is the right direction.
But an automated system is not sacred simply because it is automated.
If the state tells a citizen: “don’t worry, the system allocates cases fairly”, the citizen has the right to reply: “show us how it works”.
And this is where the problem begins.
Civil society organisations have for years demanded full transparency of the system’s source code. The Ministry disclosed a description of the algorithm, but a description of the algorithm is not the same thing as the program code. It is like showing the rules of a game while refusing to show the machine that draws the results.
Maybe it works fairly.
Maybe it works badly.
Maybe it contains errors.
Maybe it can be bypassed.
Maybe someone can influence the input data.
Maybe a judge can be excluded from the draw, the category of the case changed, the assignment suspended, an entry corrected, the case moved, and then someone can say: “the system drew it”.
That is why assurances are not enough in the justice system.
There must be oversight.
Not political oversight.
Public, technical and legal oversight.
Because where an algorithm determines the composition of the court, the algorithm becomes part of the right to a court.
A second draw can be a second opening of the door
Even an honest random allocation system does not solve everything.
Because manipulation does not have to take place during the first draw.
It may take place during the second.
First the case goes to one judge. Then the judge is transferred. Then they are relieved of some cases. Then those cases return to the pool. Then the system draws again. On paper, everything looks technical.
But the citizen has the right to ask:
Why was the panel changed?
Why now?
Why without an explanation?
Why these cases and not others?
Who made the decision?
Can the party effectively challenge it?
The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in a case concerning the Polish system, pointed precisely to this problem: removing a judge from assigned cases without clear criteria and without an obligation to provide reasons may create a risk of arbitrariness. Even the judge’s consent does not solve the problem, because consent within an institution may result from pressure, expectations of superiors or professional dependency.
That is the heart of the issue.
Random allocation is a safeguard only if its result cannot later be arbitrarily undone.
If you can keep drawing until you get the desired result, random allocation ceases to be a safeguard.
It becomes decoration.
A bribe is the simplest way to rig a case, but not the only one
The most obvious form of manipulation is classic corruption.
A judge takes money or other benefits and issues a favourable ruling. There is no great philosophy here. This is not a dispute about internal regulations, algorithms or allocation of duties. This is the sale of justice.
One such example was the case of Judge Janusz Korzeniowski, finally convicted of accepting bribes and removed from the profession. According to public reports, the case involved accepting benefits in exchange for favourable rulings.
This is the most brutal version of the collapse of the courts.
Citizens pay taxes to the state, the state builds courts, the courts are supposed to issue judgments in the name of the Republic of Poland, and somewhere along the way the judgment becomes a service for sale.
But there are also more sophisticated mechanisms.
Sometimes the judgment itself is not sold.
Sometimes influence is sold.
Sometimes someone takes money for “arranging” something that was legally inevitable anyway.
In the case of former judge Marek Z. from Przemyśl, prosecutors alleged that he accepted PLN 100,000 in exchange for a favourable ruling concerning the forfeiture of almost PLN 2 million. According to investigators, the case was already time-barred, meaning that discontinuation should have been inevitable regardless of any bribe.
This reveals another dimension of pathology.
Within a judicial network, money can be made not only from real influence, but also from convincing a citizen that nothing can be achieved without connections.
The mere impression that justice can be “arranged” becomes a commodity.
The court as an institution can itself become a place of wrongdoing
The corruption scandal at the Court of Appeal in Kraków reveals yet another mechanism.
The main issue there was not that someone was allegedly rigging specific judicial panels. It concerned money, fictitious orders, invoices, services that were allegedly never performed and a network of connections around the court. According to findings by the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau and prosecutors, the losses were said to amount to tens of millions of złoty, and dozens of people ended up in the dock.
This matters because citizens often think of a court only in terms of the courtroom.
But a court is also administration, directors, procurement, expert opinions, court experts, IT systems, tenders, contracts, translations, security, renovations and documents.
If a network of interests emerges there, the court loses its moral right to lecture citizens about honesty.
Because how is a citizen supposed to believe in the authority of the law when fictitious invoices and allegations involving millions appear around that authority?
A bankruptcy trustee, expert or guardian: justice can be rigged beside the judgment
Not every manipulation has to concern the composition of the court itself.
In many cases, what matters is who becomes the bankruptcy trustee, guardian, expert or administrator.
In insolvency proceedings, a single appointment can determine the fate of millions. The trustee manages assets. An expert may determine value. A guardian may represent an absent person. An administrator may control the actual flow of money.
If a network appears at this stage, the judgment may be nothing more than the formal conclusion of a process already taken over by people positioned around the case.
In the case of Judge Sławomir B., prosecutors referred to suspected corruption connected with a bankruptcy trustee: money, cars, benefits for family members and insolvency proceedings. This shows that in court proceedings, the judgment itself is not always the most important element.
Sometimes what matters most is who handles the case.
Sometimes there is no need to bribe the entire court.
It is enough to have your person at the right point in the procedure.
Mechanisms for rigging cases
Pathologies can take many forms.
The first is the phone call.
An influential person calls the court president or another official. They do not have to say directly: “issue this judgment”. A suggestion may be enough. A question about the panel, the date, speeding up the case, delaying it, or about “trusted” people.
The second is a manual change of the panel.
One judge disappears from the case. Another appears. The parties are informed, but they are not given a clear answer as to why it happened.
The third is a new draw.
Random on paper. Suspicious in practice if someone did not like the previous result.
The fourth is manipulation of the allocation of duties.
Case categories, percentages in random allocation, duty rosters, divisions and specialisations are changed. There is no need to interfere with a specific case if the rules of the game can be set in advance.
The fifth is direct corruption.
Money, gifts, cars, fictitious contracts, jobs for family members.
The sixth is corruption around the court.
A trustee, expert, guardian, administrator, supplier, service company, expert opinion, valuation or sale of assets.
The seventh is influence peddling.
Someone promises that they know the judge, prosecutor, court president or someone inside the court. Sometimes the influence is real. Sometimes it is fictitious. But the mere belief that there is a network destroys trust in the state.
The eighth is lack of transparency.
Because where the citizen cannot see the trace of a decision, cannot see the reasoning and cannot access the data, the system will always appear suspicious.
A state governed by the rule of law cannot operate on someone’s word of honour
The justice system requires trust.
But trust does not mean blindness.
It is not enough to tell a citizen: “please believe us”.
The citizen has the right to verify.
Who drew the case.
When it was drawn.
Who was in the pool.
Who was excluded.
Why the composition changed.
Why the draw was repeated.
Why a judge stopped handling the case.
Who signed the administrative order.
Whether the decision was reasoned.
Whether the parties can challenge it.
Whether the IT system can be independently audited.
If the answer is silence, secrecy, technical jargon or the excuse of internal court organisation, that is not the rule of law.
It is a state of procedure without oversight.
What should change?
First, full transparency of random allocation reports and changes in judicial composition.
A citizen should have a simple way to review the history of the judicial composition in their case: the first allocation, every change, every reason and every decision-maker.
Second, a mandatory written justification for every change of composition.
No formulas. No generalities. No sentence saying merely: “for organisational reasons”.
Third, real oversight of repeat draws.
A repeat draw should be an exception that flashes red in the case file. It must not look like an ordinary office procedure.
Fourth, a full audit of the random allocation system.
Not political. Technical. Independent. With the participation of experts, civil society organisations and representatives of the legal profession.
Fifth, transparency of judges’ caseload data.
If the system is supposed to allocate cases proportionally, the public must be able to see whether it actually does so.
Sixth, a public register of decisions concerning exclusions, transfers and the removal of judges from assigned cases, naturally with appropriate protection of sensitive data concerning the parties.
Seventh, stricter accountability for corruption within the justice system.
A judge, prosecutor, bankruptcy trustee, court expert or court official should not be treated more leniently because they know the system. They should be held to a higher moral standard because they know how deeply their conduct destroys trust in the state.
Oczy Temidy asks
Why should citizens trust a random allocation system they cannot genuinely verify?
Why is a change in judicial composition treated as a technical matter when it can determine a person’s fate?
Why must people still fight for access to data that should be public by default?
Why does a system designed to protect against manual interference itself remain partly opaque to citizens?
Why, in a state governed by the rule of law, does transparency so often appear only after a scandal, a journalistic provocation, an investigation or a judgment of an administrative court?
And most importantly:
Does a citizen really stand before an independent court if they do not know who decided, and why, that their case would be heard by this particular panel?
Without a transparent judicial panel there can be no fair judgment
Justice does not begin with the judgment.
Justice begins with the fair allocation of the case.
With a transparent panel.
With the stability of the assigned judge.
With resistance to phone calls.
With the absence of networks of influence.
With the certainty that no one can quietly move the case file from one pair of hands to another.
If the panel can be rigged, the case can be rigged.
If the case can be rigged, the judgment becomes nothing more than paper with an official stamp.
And a citizen who comes to court does not come for a piece of paper.
They come for justice.
And they have the right to know whether they received a court — or merely a well-organised procedure.