Even before the verdict of the ultimate Administrative Court, the Love Association did not exclude writing to civilian law offices across Poland asking about transcriptions of matrimony certificates of same-sex couples who married abroad. The vast majority confirmed that erstwhile the government makes the essential changes, transcriptions will be made.
In November 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (TEU), the most crucial EU court, issued a judgement on a couple of 2 Poles to whom the Polish office refused to transcribe their abroad matrimony certificate. The TEU confirmed that Poland has a work to let for transcription and that EU law resulting from the treaties is in this context superior to national law.
Following the conviction of Kuba Gawron, the Rzeszowski activist and associate of the Atlas of Hate, sent to 160 municipalities in Podkarpackie Voivodeship a request for access to public information asking whether, after the essential method changes were introduced by the authorities, the civilian position offices would comply with the judgement and issue transcriptions. The Society of Love Is not excluded decided to ask the same thing 2108 offices in another voivodships.
A Summary of Actions Love Does Not Execute:
2108 sent questions to USC
209 USC answered the question
Including responses from Podkarpackie municipalities collected by Cuba Gawron:
482 (48 percent of response) USC declares that it will issue transcriptions as shortly as the government makes it possible
449 (45 percent of response) USC says it works on the basis of regulations, so it will transcribe if it gets specified guidelines
Half USC: The government has not made any changes that we can relate to
Not counting a twelve offices that have not responded to the news at all, 55 percent reported that there is no work to answer due to the fact that the question concerns future alternatively than current legislation, so it is subject to the rule of access to public information. It is worth noting here that any offices have shown good will, indicating that they will supply information, even though they are not obliged to do so.
The remaining 45 percent of the offices responded to the Association's question. Among their answers were 2 variants. 48 percent of officials stated explicitly that as shortly as the government implements the appropriate solutions, the offices will implement transcription applications. 45 percent of the answer was based on the explanation that the offices operate on the basis of law and top-down guidelines, so that possible changes in their functioning can only happen as a consequence of changes made by the government.
It may seem apparent that officials answer that they are acting and will act in accordance with the law. The question makes sense, however, due to the fact that the results clearly show that the people liable for the transcription of same-sex matrimony acts are willing to do so, but they do not have the possibility. So we have couples who want to get a Polish matrimony certificate, we have officials who are willing to issue specified documents, but as usual, the political class is an obstacle – says Maja ebony of the Love Association.
In the another provinces of Poland, the communicative described by Gawron was no longer repeated erstwhile 1 of the Podkarpackie officials wrote back to him, quoting the Bible, and later in an interview with a journalist, he said that he would not have transcribed the matrimony certificate for the same-sex couple, even if it cost him his job. Throughout the country, only 36 authorities replied to a clear refusal of transcription, which would allegedly reconcile the legal order in force in Poland.
Regardless of the number and content of the answer, it is crucial to emphasize: all civilian state office in Poland received a question about same-sex matrimony and had to someway respond to this fact.
There is no uncertainty that many offices may have had talks about this for the first time, and officials consulted each another to prepare respective types of ready-made consequence patterns that later repeated in letters from different localities. We see officials are ready, couples are waiting, another courts are ordering, and the government must act –comments Hubert Sobecki of the Love Association.
What changed the NSA's sentence
On 20 March, the ultimate Administrative Court (NSA) issued a judgement in a case in which it had previously referred a question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. According to the ruling of the Court, the NSA confirmed that Polish offices are obliged to transcribe. The Warsaw office, whose refusal was appealed by James and Matthew, received a 30-day period from the minute of returning the file to the couple.
In the oral justification of the judgement The NSA stressed that the transcription must be carried out regardless of even method limitations in the information strategy and not included in the model of the same-sex couple matrimony certificate. The court besides confirmed that designation of same-sex matrimony does not thereby violate the Polish legal order, and that the constitution does not only prohibit designation of abroad marriages, but requires the protection of the household life of same-sex couples, due to the fact that it should be read in its entirety and not selectively.
It was the argument of concern for the legal order that a large part of the offices, which in their replies pointed to the request for more than method changes in law or even inability to transcribe. In the coming weeks, the Association will so re-contact and ask them, address this aspect of the NSA judgment.
Minister of Justice Waldemar Żurek said that the government respects global and national sentences, and Minister of Justice Krzysztof Gawkowski announced the publication of interministerial comments on the draft regulation, which already in January published his ministry. Although 10 days were given to send comments, they were not published on the Government Legislative Centre website for 2 months. It can be assumed that, erstwhile again, ministries unrelated to the subject matter, but guided by homophobic politicians like Władysław Kosiniak-Kamish, will rise serious objections.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk was asked about the NSA's conviction inactive on the day of his announcement on TVN24. alternatively of making a clear stand for the regulation of law and announcing its urgent implementation, he changed the subject and suggested how the judgement could be circumvented. According to the Prime Minister, the adoption of the law on the position of the nearest individual and the agreement on a common life in the relation will guarantee that there will be no "conflict between regulations in Poland and what results from legislation, for example, in another European countries".
It is precisely the inability to exercise rights in Poland, specified as freedom of movement and residence and respect for household life, which benefit Poles and Poles in another EU associate States, that is the basis of the judgments of the TEU and the NSA. Donald Tusk's message may so mean that the substance of transcription will not be treated as a common precedence by his government.
If we take into account Krzysztof Gawkowski's earlier announcement of 8 months, whose ministry of digitization will request to enable the registration of same-sex couples' matrimony certificates in the system, the hazard of suppressing the subject before the 2027 parliamentary elections may be a realistic script – comments Maja ebony from the Love Association.
It is so all the more crucial that part of the justification for the NSA judgment, in which the method systemic restrictions are presented as being secondary to the work to transcribe. If there are offices ready to issue matrimony certificates in a paper version only and with an appropriate endorsement, Polish couples of the same sex will apply for them – with the support of the Love Association.
