Sąd Najwyższy (Supreme Court of Poland)

Małgorzata Manowska, dr. jur.
First President of the Supreme Court

First President since: 26 May 2020
Member of the Supreme Court since: 10 October 2018

Biography and career

Małgorzata Manowska, born on 22 September 1964 in Warsaw, Justice of the Supreme Court, Doctor of Laws, associate professor of Łazarski University.

On 26 May 2020, she was appointed First President of the Supreme Court for a six-year term.

Ms Manowska is a graduate of the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw. After completing her judicial training, she passed her judicial exam with the highest grade, worked as an associate judge, and was appointed a judge of the District Court for Warsaw-Praga on 17 October 1996.

From 28 June 2000 until 15 February 2004, she was a judge of the Warsaw Regional Court, and from 16 February 2004 until 9 October 2018 of the Warsaw Court of Appeal.

On 10 October 2018, the President of Poland appointed Małgorzata Manowska as a justice of the Supreme Court to adjudicate in the Civil Chamber.

During her service as a judge, Ms Manowska has also pursued her academic work. In 2001, she received a doctorate at the Institute of Civil Law of the University of Warsaw with a thesis on order for payment proceedings in civil litigation. In 2010, also at the Institute of Civil Law of the University of Warsaw, she obtained her postdoctoral degree (habilitation) with a dissertation on reopening of civil proceedings. Since 2013, she has lectured at Łazarski University, where she is an associate professor.
She has authored many publications on civil procedure, and co-authored commentaries on the Civil Procedure Code and the Family and Guardianship Code, highly regarded among legal practitioners, as well as The Labour Law System, Vol. 6: Procedural Labour Law.

Between 1 April and 28 November 2007, she was undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Justice.

For many years Ms Manowska was a lecturer and member of the examination committee for trainee attorneys-at-law, advocates and notaries, as well as a lecturer at the National School of the Judiciary and Public Prosecution and examiner for judicial exams.

From 21 January 2016 until her appointment as First President of the Supreme Court, she was the director of the National School of the Judiciary and Public Prosecution, the institution responsible for training future generations of judges and prosecutors in Poland.

Ms Manowska is married, with two children and three grandchildren.