Jakub Cupriak-Trojan and Mateusz Trojan married in Berlin in 2018. When they asked Warsaw’s civil registry to record it, they were refused. Seven years, two appeals, and one European Court of Justice ruling later, Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court has told the registry to enter the marriage — within 30 days.

The ruling, handed down on March 20, implements a November 2025 judgment by the CJEU that found Poland’s refusal to transcribe same-sex marriages from other EU member states violated freedom-of-movement protections under EU treaty law. Judge Leszek Kirnaszek was direct: citizens “have the right to expect legal effectiveness and avoid uncertainty regarding their marital status.”

What It Does — and Doesn’t — Change

The decision cracks open a door that Poland has kept firmly shut. For years it ranked among the EU’s most resistant members on LGBTQ+ rights; some municipalities declared themselves “LGBT-free zones” as recently as 2020. Now, same-sex couples married elsewhere in the EU can have their unions entered into Polish civil records, granting access to rights in areas like social security, taxation, and inheritance.

What it does not do is legalize same-sex marriage in Poland itself. Article 18 of the constitution still defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and no domestic legislation has changed. The route here was EU free movement, not Polish lawmaking.

Reactions split along predictable lines. Government plenipotentiary Katarzyna Kotula said no new legislation was needed for registries to comply. Law and Justice leader Mariusz Błaszczak called it “an attack on the family” and promised a Constitutional Tribunal challenge. ILGA-Europe’s Marie-Hélène Ludwig called it “a victory for same-sex couples deprived of recognition for years.”

The constitution hasn’t moved. But for couples like the Trojans, the bureaucracy finally has to.

Sources