## Facts

- In 2006, public concerns arose in Poland about questionable capital and ownership decisions in the banking sector and about the quality of oversight connected with those decisions.
- The National Bank of Poland (Narodowy Bank Polski, NBP) had a constitutionally defined status as an independent public institution, which raised special concerns about the permissible reach of parliamentary investigation.
- Seeking to examine the banking sector and related supervisory actions, the Sejm adopted a resolution (24 March 2006) establishing a temporary investigative committee.
- Article 2 of the resolution set the committee’s subject matter and time frame, referring broadly to capital and ownership transformations in the banking sector and to actions of banking supervisory authorities over the post-1989 period identified in the resolution.
- A group of Sejm deputies initiated abstract constitutional review (kontrola abstrakcyjna), challenging Article 2 as overly broad and as risking interference with competences reserved to other state organs, including independent bodies such as the NBP.
- The Constitutional Tribunal heard the case in full bench and issued a judgment on 22 September 2006; no separate opinions were filed.

## Issues

1. Whether Article 2 of the Sejm resolution defining the banking investigative committee’s mandate was compatible with constitutional requirements of a state governed by law, including sufficient clarity of the mandate and limits on public power.
2. Whether the Sejm’s use of an investigative committee, as defined in Article 2, respected constitutional separation of powers by avoiding functions reserved to courts and prosecutorial authorities.
3. Whether the committee’s mandate, as defined in Article 2, could be applied in a way that would impermissibly interfere with the NBP’s constitutionally protected independence.

## Decision

- The Constitutional Tribunal held that the Sejm has constitutional authority to establish investigative committees as a tool of parliamentary control, but that the committee’s work must remain within constitutional and statutory limits.
- The Tribunal sustained Article 2 only with a constitution-consistent reading that limits how the committee’s mandate may be carried out.
- The Tribunal stated that an investigative committee is not a court and may not adjudicate, determine criminal or civil liability, or replace proceedings reserved to the judiciary or prosecutors.
- The Tribunal required that committee activities remain connected to the constitutional function of parliamentary control and be performed using legally defined committee measures and procedures.
- With respect to the NBP, the Tribunal indicated that inquiry may not turn into operational direction or coercive interference that would compromise the NBP’s constitutionally defined independence.

## Legal Principles

- Parliamentary investigative committees are permitted under the Constitution as instruments of Sejm control, but they operate within defined constitutional boundaries.
- Rule-of-law requirements apply to Sejm investigative mandates: the mandate must be sufficiently defined to allow lawful exercise of powers and to prevent arbitrary expansion in practice.
- Separation of powers bars an investigative committee from exercising judicial functions, including binding determinations of individual responsibility or outcomes that effectively prejudge liability.
- The principle of legality requires that committee measures have a clear basis in law and be carried out within the limits set by the Constitution and applicable statutes governing investigative committees.
- Constitutionally independent bodies, including the NBP, may be subject to parliamentary inquiry for purposes of accountability, but not to direction that would impair their protected independence.

## Conclusion

In Bank Investigation Case, No. U 4/06 (2006), the Polish Constitutional Tribunal reviewed the Sejm’s resolution creating a banking-sector investigative committee and concluded that the Sejm may use such a committee as a control mechanism, but only within strict constitutional limits, including limits that safeguard legality, separation of powers, and the National Bank of Poland’s independence.
