Poland’s highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, on Tuesday overturned a law that would have provided legal recognition to gay husbands who married in other EU member states and later moved to Poland.
The government in Warsaw was moving to accommodate a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union that said majority Catholic Poland, which does not allow same-sex marriage domestically, must at least recognize unions contracted elsewhere in the EU.
The unanimous decision could trigger a power struggle between Poland’s top court and the 27-member bloc.
What decision did the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland give?
The court said in a statement on Tuesday The decision was unanimous and final and EU same-sex marriages could not be copied into the country’s civil registry as previously planned.
It stated that “the scheme of preparation and issuance of certified copies relating to unions contracted abroad, which do not constitute a union between a woman and a man,” were incompatible with Article 92, paragraph 1, in conjunction with Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.
Article 18 of the Constitution reads as follows: “Marriage, being the union of one man and one woman, as well as the family, being the union of motherhood and fatherhood, shall be placed under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland.”
In other words it describes marriage as heterosexual in nature and part of Poland’s jurisdiction.
Article 92, paragraph 1 meanwhile specifies that the rules should be specified by “the organs specified in the Constitution”.
The court did not elaborate on its reasoning in its brief statement, but it appears that its judges found that the European Court’s order encroached on Poland’s right to set family and marriage policies.
What was agreed upon earlier, when and why?
Decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union November 2025 Poland has not sought to legalize gay marriage, nor does it legally recognize same-sex spouses.
However, it demanded that a same-sex couple who legally married elsewhere in the EU and then exercised “their freedom of movement and residence” in another state, such as Poland, should have their marital status recorded in the civil register if this is the only way to secure the benefits and securities of marital status in that country.
The case was initiated by two men, a Polish citizen and a German-Polish dual citizen, who were legally married while living in Germany in 2018 and then moved to Poland the following year.
Poland’s highest administrative court ruled in March that the move “does not violate national identity,” nor interfere with Poland’s right to determine its own family and marriage laws.
The government of Poland promulgated the law later in May, and it was scheduled to go into effect by the end of August.
But the right-wing opposition PiS party successfully challenged the move in the Constitutional Tribunal, as it happens.
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal and the EU’s top courts have clashed before, at least in a long-running dispute over the controversial appointment of new judges to the court during the PiS government, most recently when the European Court of Justice reprimanded Poland’s top court last December.
With approximately 70% of the population identifying as Roman Catholic in census data, Poland is one of only four members of the European Union, along with Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, that does not allow same-sex marriage or same-sex civil unions.
Edited by: Jennifer Cimino Gonzalez
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