Senate votes 59-25 to confirm Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram as Poland's next Ombudsman

Senate gives final approval

The Senate voted 59 to 25 on Wednesday, 22 July 2026, to confirm Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram as Poland's next Commissioner for Human Rights. No senator abstained. The upper house's consent was the last parliamentary hurdle; the Sejm had already endorsed her candidacy five days earlier.

The Ombudsman's office should be a place of dialogue. The Constitution of the Republic of Poland is like a charter of human rights, and the role of the Ombudsman derives from it.

She addressed senators before the ballot, describing the office as a constitutional guardian of fundamental rights.

Sejm vote and the rival candidate

The lower house backed Gregorczyk-Abram on Friday, 17 July, with 233 votes in favour and 177 for Adam Borowski, the candidate put forward by Law and Justice (PiS). The Sejm's Justice and Human Rights Committee had issued a positive opinion on her candidacy the previous Wednesday, while giving a negative assessment to Borowski.

Borowski, an opposition activist from the communist era, now heads the Warsaw club of "Gazeta Polska" and is associated with PiS circles. Gregorczyk-Abram was nominated jointly by the Civic Coalition (KO) and the Left (Lewica). Under the Polish constitution, the Ombudsman is appointed by the Sejm with the Senate's consent.

A lawyer and activist

Born in 1982, Gregorczyk-Abram is a Warsaw-based advocate and human rights defender. She earned her law degree from the University of Warsaw and also completed the Center for American Law Studies programme. She holds postgraduate qualifications in medical law, bioethics, and the sociology of medicine from the University of Warsaw, as well as in criminal-fiscal and economic law from Jagiellonian University. She was admitted to the Warsaw Bar in 2010.

Her public profile grew from her role as a co-founder of the "Wolne Sądy" (Free Courts) initiative, launched in 2017 during mass protests against changes to the Supreme Court. She remains on the board of that organisation. She also co-founded the Committee for the Defence of Justice and serves on the board of the Prof. Zbigniew Hołda Association.

In May 2025, she was appointed chair of a commission at the Ministry of Justice tasked with uncovering the mechanisms of repression against civil society organisations and activists between 2015 and 2023. When the plan to establish the commission was announced a month earlier, she called it a moral obligation of the state.

It was a moral obligation of the state.

She has also been active on disability rights, frequently citing her own experience as the mother of a child with a disability.

Political fault lines

Gregorczyk-Abram was a prominent critic of the judicial reforms pursued by the PiS government. The Do Rzeczy weekly reported that she was linked to a WhatsApp group named "Wejście", where participants discussed taking control of public broadcasters TVP, Polish Radio, and the Polish Press Agency. One member wrote that the situation "smells of martial law" but argued that a shout of 50 is better than proof of the government's powerlessness.

The commission she chairs has been described by some outlets as directed against PiS, reflecting the deep political polarisation surrounding her appointment.

## Handover Gregorczyk-Abram will succeed Prof. Marcin Wiącek, who has served as Ombudsman since 2021. His five-year term expires on 23 July 2026. The new commissioner is expected to assume office the following day.