Law and Justice
Law and Justice is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Reformists Group. Its chairman is Jarosław Kaczyński, since 18 January 2003.
PiS was founded in 2001 by Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński as a direct successor of the Centre Agreement after it split from the Solidarity Electoral Action. Despite a poor showing in the 2001 parliamentary election, where it came 4th, PiS won the 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections and formed the Marcinkiewicz and Kaczyński governments. The governments included coalition ministers from the League of Polish Families and Self-Defence before collapsing in 2007. The rival Civic Platform emerged victorious in the 2007 snap election and formed a coalition with the Polish People's Party, which served two terms, retaining a majority in the 2011 parliamentary election. PiS lost the presidency following the death of president Lech Kaczński and administration officials in the Smolensk air disaster — acting president Bronisław Komorowski of PO was elected to the presidency in 2010, winning against Jarosław Kaczyński in the second round. Law and Justice concluded its period in opposition when it won an upset victory in the 2015 presidential election and an outright majority of seats in the 2015 parliamentary election, retaining its majority in 2019 and the presidency in 2020. It governed for 8 years, forming the Szydło and Morawiecki cabinets, until losing its parliamentary majority in 2023 and returning to opposition despite winning the highest number of seats. The party's candidate, Karol Nawrocki, scored another upset victory in the 2025 presidential election.
During its foundation, it sought to position itself as a centrist Christian democratic party, although shortly after, it adopted more culturally and socially conservative views and began their shift to the right. Under Kaczyński's national-conservative and law and order agenda, PiS embraced economic interventionism. During the 2010s, it also adopted right-wing populist positions. After regaining power in 2015, PiS gained popularity with more populist and social policies. It has also pursued close relations with the Catholic Church. The party is also described as "left-paternalistic", and left-conservative.
It is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists, and on national-level, it heads the United Right coalition.
It has been accused of authoritarianism and contributing to democratic backsliding, and attracted widespread international criticism and domestic protest movements.
History
Formation
The party was created on a wave of popularity gained by Lech Kaczyński while heading the Polish Ministry of Justice in the AWS-led government, although local committees began appearing from 22 March 2001.The AWS itself was created from a diverse array of many small political parties. In the 2001 general election, PiS gained 44 seats in the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament with 9.5% of votes. In 2002, Lech Kaczyński was elected mayor of Warsaw. He handed the party leadership to his twin brother Jarosław in 2003.In coalition government: 2005–2007
In the 2005 general election, PiS took first place with 27.0% of votes, which gave it 155 out of 460 seats in the Sejm and 49 out of 100 seats in the Senate. It was almost universally expected that the two largest parties, PiS and Civic Platform, would form a coalition government. The putative coalition parties had a falling out, however, related to a fierce contest for the Polish presidency. In the end, Lech Kaczyński won the second round of the presidential election on 23 October 2005 with 54.0% of the vote, ahead of Donald Tusk, the PO candidate.After the 2005 elections, Jarosław should have become prime minister. However, in order to improve his brother's chances of winning the presidential election, PiS formed a minority government headed by Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as prime minister, an arrangement that eventually turned out to be unworkable. In July 2006, PiS formed a coalition government with the agrarian populist Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland and the nationalist League of Polish Families, headed by Jarosław Kaczyński. In September 2006 the coalition was abruptly ended after the leftist Samoobrona protested Kaczyński's decision to send additional Polish troops to Afghanistan. PiS faced a threat of early election and sought to replace Samoobrona with the Polish People's Party. However, after a senior aide of Kaczyński was filmed secretly trying to bribe a Samoobrona MP to defect to PiS, Jarosław Kalinowski, the leader of the Polish People's Party, accused PiS of corruption and ruled out a coalition. Later, in October 2006, PiS was able to restore its coalition government with Samoobrona and LPR, and defeat the motion for early elections.
In the 2006 Polish local elections that took place in November 2006, PiS narrowly lost the contest for the first place with Civic Platform. However, the coalition partners of Law and Justice, Samoobrona and LPR, lost roughly two-thirds of their supports in the elections, questioning the stability of the coalition. The coalition collapsed after Lepper was dismissed from his position as Deputy Prime Minister on 9 July 2007 over suspicions that he was involved in a corruption scandal. It was then claimed that the Central Anticorruption Bureau organized a sting operation against Lepper; PiS dismissed all of their ministers from the government after the affair, effectively ending the coalition. On 6 September 2007, the Sejm was dissolved and the 2007 snap election was called.
In opposition: 2007–2015
In the 2007 general election, PiS managed to secure 32.1% of votes. Although an improvement over its showing from 2005, the results were nevertheless a defeat for the party, as Civic Platform gathered 41.5%. The party won 166 out of 460 seats in the Sejm and 39 seats in Poland's Senate. The two partners of PiS from the 2006-2007, Samoobrona and LPR, fell below 5% and lost all theirs seats, despite polling around 5% shortly before the election. In 2009, the government coalition led by Civic Platform and Polish People's Party charged Mariusz Kamiński, the head of the Central Anticorruption Bureau, with abuse of power in connection to the sting operation against Lepper.On 10 April 2010, its former leader Lech Kaczyński died in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash. Jarosław Kaczyński became the sole leader of the party. He was the presidential candidate in the 2010 elections. In the 2010 election, Jarosław gathered 46.99% of the vote, losing to Civic Platform candidate Bronislaw Komorowski, who won with 53.01%.
In majority government: 2015–2023
The party won the 2015 parliamentary election, this time with an outright majority—something no Polish party had done since the fall of communism. In the normal course of events, this should have made Jarosław Kaczyński prime minister for a second time. However, Beata Szydło, perceived as being somewhat more moderate than Kaczyński, had been tapped as PiS's candidate for prime minister.The party supported controversial reforms carried out by the Hungarian Fidesz party, with Jarosław Kaczyński declaring in 2011 that "a day will come when we have a Budapest in Warsaw". PiS's 2015 victory prompted creation of a cross-party opposition movement, the Committee for the Defence of Democracy. Law and Justice has Proposed 2017 judicial reforms, which according to the party were meant to improve efficiency of the justice system, sparked protest as they were seen as undermining judicial independence. While these reforms were initially unexpectedly vetoed by President Duda, he later signed them into law. In 2017, the European Union began an Article 7 infringement procedure against Poland due to a "clear risk of a serious breach" in the rule of law and fundamental values of the European Union.
The party has caused what constitutional law scholar Wojciech Sadurski termed a "constitutional breakdown" by packing the Constitutional Court with its supporters, undermining parliamentary procedure, and reducing the president's and prime minister's offices in favour of power being wielded extra-constitutionally by party leader Jarosław Kaczyński. After eliminating constitutional checks, the government then moved to curtail the activities of NGOs and independent media, restrict freedom of speech and assembly, and reduce the qualifications required for civil service jobs in order to fill these positions with party loyalists. The media law was changed to give the governing party control of the state media, which was turned into a partisan outlet, with dissenting journalists fired from their jobs. Due to these political changes, Poland has been termed an "illiberal democracy", "plebiscitarian authoritarianism", or "velvet dictatorship with a façade of democracy".
The party won reelection in the 2019 parliamentary election. With 44% of the popular vote, Law and Justice received the highest vote share by any party since Poland returned to democracy in 1989, but lost its majority in the Senate.
In opposition: 2023–present
The United Right alliance placed first for the third straight election and won a plurality of seats but fell short of a Sejm majority. The opposition, consisting of the Civic Coalition, Third Way, and The Left, achieved a combined total vote of 54%, managing to form a majority coalition government. Although PiS would be unable to govern on its own, the Polish president Andrzej Duda stated his intention to re-appoint the incumbent Mateusz Morawiecki as prime minister due to the existing albeit unofficial convention of nominating a member of the winning party. The four opposition parties criticized Duda's decision as a delay tactic. The opposition parties subsequently signed a coalition agreement on 10 November, de facto taking over control of the Sejm, and agreed to nominate former prime minister and European Council President Donald Tusk as their candidate. Morawiecki's new cabinet, dubbed "two-week government" and "zombie government" by the media due to its anticipated short-livedness, was sworn in on 27 November 2023. As expected, the Morawiecki's government was defeated in the Sejm on 11 December 2023, effectively ending its tenure.The party's endorsed candidate, Karol Nawrocki, won the 2025 Polish presidential election in an upset victory.