The audit examines 21 presidential legislative initiatives with regard to their actual procedural status, normative mechanism, financing, feasibility and systemic compatibility.
The purpose of the study was to determine whether these bills can reasonably be treated as a single group affected by parliamentary inaction, commonly referred to in public debate as the so-called “Sejm freezer”.
Executive Summary
The audit does not support the classification of all 21 initiatives under a single category of parliamentary inaction.
The examined set includes cases with fundamentally different procedural statuses: prolonged inactivity, active parliamentary consideration, termination of proceedings through rejection or enactment of a bill, presidential veto, as well as bills requiring significant legal, financial or implementation-related amendments.
Treating all of these initiatives collectively as “frozen” does not accurately reflect the actual course of parliamentary proceedings or the quality of the individual bills.
Key Findings
- The fact that a bill has not been finally enacted does not mean that no parliamentary work has taken place. Consultations, opinions, assignment of a parliamentary print number, referral, readings, committee proceedings and votes are all substantive stages of the legislative process.
- The examined set includes bills that were rejected, enacted, vetoed or are actively under parliamentary consideration.
- Some initiatives rely on solutions previously used in other legislative processes. Reuse of legally sound solutions is not in itself a defect, but it is relevant when assessing the actual scope of new legislative work involved.
- At the same time, the audit confirms the existence of genuine periods of inactivity lasting several months in relation to some bills.
- The most significant substantive risks concern, inter alia, financing, feasibility, compliance with European Union law and standards governing judicial independence.
- Prolonged absence of a clear procedural determination should be explained and brought to an end through an explicit procedural decision.
Subject, Scope and Method
For each initiative, the audit examined in particular:
- the date on which the bill was submitted;
- consultations and opinions;
- assignment of a parliamentary print number;
- referral for first reading;
- readings held;
- committee proceedings;
- votes;
- proceedings in the Senate;
- enactment of the bill or exercise of the presidential veto;
- the normative mechanism;
- implementation requirements;
- the method of financing;
- legal and systemic risks;
- the origin of the proposed solutions, where the bill relied on provisions previously used in another legislative process.
The study is based primarily on primary documents and institutional sources: the texts of bills and explanatory memoranda, official legislative histories, Sejm documents, BEOS analyses, opinions of the Prosecutor General, ZUS, NBP, the Venice Commission, and relevant sources of national, European Union and international law.
The procedural status was assessed on the basis of data available as of 22 August 2026.
Full Report
The full version of the audit contains a detailed analysis of all 21 initiatives, including an assessment of their procedural status, normative mechanism, financing, feasibility, legal risks and sources.
The full report is available in PDF format.
Translation of the original Polish version. The original Polish version is authoritative.