Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal nullifies EU same-sex marriage recognition order
Warsaw’s highest court declares that registering foreign same-sex unions violates the national Constitution, setting up a direct institutional confrontation with the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has unanimously overturned legislation designed to recognise same-sex marriages performed in other European Union member states, delivering a decisive rebuke to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The ruling, issued on Tuesday, declares that the registration of such unions in the civil registry is inconsistent with the Polish Constitution, which explicitly defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The decision effectively nullifies a law implemented by the Warsaw government in May, which was scheduled to come into force at the end of August. That legislation had been introduced to comply with a November 2025 CJEU order requiring Poland to register these unions to secure marital benefits for couples exercising freedom of movement. By overturning the act, the Constitutional Tribunal has set the stage for a significant power struggle regarding national sovereignty over family law.
In its statement, the court cited Article 92, Paragraph 1, in conjunction with Article 18 of the Constitution. The judges concluded that the EU order encroached on Poland’s authority to set its own family and marriage policies. Article 18 places marriage, defined as a union between a man and a woman, under the protection of the Republic, while Article 92 specifies that such regulations must be determined by organs specified in the Constitution, rather than external judicial bodies.
The legal challenge originated from a case involving two men, a Polish national and a German-Polish dual national, who married in Germany in 2018 and moved to Poland in 2019. While Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court had ruled in March that registering these unions did not violate national identity, the right-wing opposition PiS party challenged the subsequent government legislation at the Constitutional Tribunal. The tribunal’s unanimous and final judgment confirms that certified copies concerning unions contracted abroad that do not constitute a heterosexual marriage cannot be issued.
This confrontation marks the latest in a series of tensions between Poland’s top court and EU institutions. The two bodies have clashed previously, particularly over the appointment of judges during the PiS government’s tenure, with the CJEU issuing a rebuke of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal as recently as December of the previous year. Poland remains one of only four EU member states, alongside Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia, that does not permit same-sex marriages or civil unions, a stance supported by census data indicating that approximately 70 per cent of the population identifies as Roman Catholic.
