Supreme Bar Council: Court Medical Examiner Institution to Be Liquidated. Ministry Has Other Plan

• The Parliamentary Committee for Petitions considered the petition of the Supreme Bar Council regarding the liquidation of the institution of the court physician
• The NRA argued that despite the obligation to justify failure to appear in court, the parties have very difficult access to such doctors
• She proposed that courts should recognise ordinary medical certificates.
• The Ministry of Justice is against it. It believes that it could lead to obstruction of court proceedings.
• The Commission has sent a request to the Ministry of Justice on this matter.

On Wednesday ( June 4, 2025 ), the Sejm Petitions Committee sent a desideratum to the Ministry of Justice regarding the liquidation of the institution of the court physician. This is the result of a petition submitted by the Supreme Bar Council.

The task of the court physician is to verify medical documentation to determine whether the health condition of the person who is to appear in court justified the lack of appearance. This applies to the parties, their legal representatives, attorneys, witnesses, defendants, defense attorneys and other participants in the proceedings.

According to an analysis conducted by the NRA in April and October 2024, in ten judicial districts, court physicians are not available at all (no agreements concluded between physicians and the presidents of these courts), and in the remaining judicial districts their number is insufficient to fulfill the obligation to obtain such a certificate.

- Particular attention should be paid to the situation of a citizen for whom the state does not provide access to a court doctor, while at the same time formulating such a requirement in the law. A citizen cannot bear the negative consequences of such a situation - the authors of the petition pointed out.

They added that people who need to justify their failure to appear in response to a summons or court notification due to illness are dependent on assessing the credibility of the reason for their failure to appear, which is not always accepted.

According to the NRA, keeping medical examiners in the system is unnecessary and pointless. Instead, courts should be able to recognize medical certificates issued by, for example, a primary care physician or a medical specialist.

- We have only about 200 forensic doctors in the country. I once got sick and I said to myself, never again. And that's because I spent two weeks looking for an appointment with a forensic doctor - said Przemysław Rosati , president of the National Bar Council, during the Commission meeting.

The petition was addressed by Małgorzata Kosicka , director of the Department of Personnel and Organization of Common and Military Courts in the Ministry of Justice. She informed that the Ministry of Justice is working on increasing rates for court doctors, which would motivate doctors to establish cooperation with courts.

She explained that the institution of a court physician was introduced to counteract the obstruction of court proceedings. She admitted that in fact, in many courts there are too few such physicians, or there are none at all. However, she noted that courts can substitute an ordinary medical certificate when the party has not had the opportunity to make an appointment with a court physician.

- Formally, the court should not evaluate an ordinary medical certificate, because the law obliges the party to present a certificate from a court physician - retorted Przemysław Rosati.

The representative of the Ministry of Justice emphasized that abandoning the institution of the court physician in favor of recognizing ordinary medical certificates would lower the standards in terms of justifying absences from court. It would also involve experts in the need to verify ordinary certificates, and such collaborators are also lacking in the system.

- The parties will abuse the possibility of not appearing in court. I understand that money will not solve everything, but let's not lower the standard - concluded Małgorzata Kosicka.

However, the Petitions Committee decided to forward the desideratum to the Ministry of Justice to consider the possibility of removing the institution of the medical examiner from the system.

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