Polish Parliament Passes Bill to Dissolve Central Anticorruption Bureau

Poland's lower house of parliament, the Sejm, voted on March 13, 2026 to liquidate the Central Anticorruption Bureau, sending the bill to President Karol Nawrocki, who has already signaled he will not sign it into law. Under the legislation, the CBA's responsibilities would be distributed among three institutions: the Police, the Internal Security Agency, and the National Revenue Administration. A new unit within the Police, the Central Bureau for Combating Corruption, would absorb a portion of the CBA's current duties. The vote marks the most significant step yet in the ruling coalition's effort to dismantle an agency that has operated for years as an independent anti-corruption force.

President Nawrocki, who has held office since August 6, 2025, made clear before the vote that he would not consent to the dissolution. Zbigniew Bogucki, the Head of the President's Chancellery, reinforced that position publicly after the Sejm's decision. „Nothing will come of it, there is no president's consent” — Zbigniew Bogucki via NCZAS.INFO Bogucki's statement effectively signals that Nawrocki intends to veto the legislation, which would require a three-fifths majority in the Sejm to override. Whether the ruling coalition commands that threshold remains, according to available reporting, an open question.

Critics of the bill, including prosecutors cited in reports by Niezalezna.pl, argued that dissolving a specialized agency of this kind is fundamentally flawed. Their core objection was that institutions built to fight corruption accumulate expertise, procedures, and institutional knowledge over many years that cannot be quickly replicated elsewhere. Opposition politicians from the Law and Justice party described the liquidation as political retaliation by Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government against CBA officers who had previously investigated members of the current ruling coalition. According to web search results citing Polish media, the Law and Justice party characterized the move as revenge for the CBA's past actions against politicians now in government.

The Central Anticorruption Bureau was created as a special service of the Polish state to combat corruption in public and economic life, with a particular focus on state and local government institutions and activities harmful to the economic interests of the state. The Internal Security Agency, which would take on some of the CBA's functions under the new bill, was itself established on June 29, 2002, following the dissolution of the Office for State Protection. The proposed restructuring would concentrate anti-corruption enforcement across three separate bodies rather than a single dedicated agency, a model that prosecutors cited in reporting have publicly criticized as ineffective for building long-term institutional capacity. The bill's passage through the Sejm does not guarantee its enactment, as a presidential veto would return it to parliament. No confirmed information is available on whether the coalition has the votes needed to override such a veto. The political dispute over the CBA's future now shifts to a constitutional standoff between the legislature and the presidency.