Acta Iuris Stetinensis

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the flaws in the institutional construction of the external supervision of the Minister of Justice over the administrative activity of common courts. The main research method used in the study was a comparative analysis of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, laws and other legal acts. The paper presents the supreme supervision of the Minister of Justice over the administrative activity of common courts introduced by the legislator, which compromises the independence of judges asymmetrically to the efficiency of the judiciary. The institutional construction of the supreme supervision of common courts equips the Minister of Justice with arbitrary and discretionary authority over the administrative activities of the courts, which violates the constitutional principle of the tripartite division of power. The problem of institutional construction and the balancing of powers from the perspective of the Constitution is extremely important. The first doubt is shown in Article 183(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland that the Supreme Court supervises the activities of the common and military courts in the field of adjudication. Thus, in principle, the question of supervision of jurisdictional activities is clarified, whereas there is no explicitly expressed supervision of judicial administration in the Constitution. Nevertheless, such supervision is necessary, since the court is the disposer of budgetary funds, movable and immovable property, in matters of economic administration such supervision is necessary from the point of view of legality, economy, expediency and reliability. First of all, this study indicates what the administrative activity of common courts is. Then, the evolution of the external supervision of the Minister of Justice over the administrative activity of common courts is presented. In the next part of the paper, the Constitutional prerequisites for excessive interference in the independence of common courts are shown. In the final part, the urgent need for reform in the area of the Minister of Justice’s external supervision over the administrative activity of common courts is indicated.