How Deep is Your Love? Ideology and Party Interests in Parliamentary Debates on Reforming the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland

This paper investigates the consistency of political party framing on Rule of Law (RoL) issues in Poland, focusing on how frames change when parties—both pro-democratic and backsliding—move between government and opposition. Although existing research highlights ideology as the key determinant of parties’ RoL positions, far less is known about whether these positions hold when strategic interests tied to government or opposition status conflict with ideological commitments. How consistent is party framing of RoL issues across government–opposition transitions? Do pro-democratic parties and democratic backsliders behave differently? And how deep is parties’ normative commitment when it clashes with party interest? Empirically, the article analyses plenary and committee debates on the reform of the Constitutional Tribunal (CT) across two legislative periods (2019–2023 and 2023–ongoing). In the first period, democratic backsliders governed and pro-democratic parties opposed; in the second, this alignment was reversed. Using qualitative and quantitative discourse analysis in Atlas.ti, the study examines how parties legitimized or de-legitimized key elements of the reform package, including the ECtHR Xero Flor ruling, the parliamentary resolution on the CT (Druk 226), the draft CT acts (Druk 253/254), and the draft constitutional amendment. Preliminary findings suggest that transitions between government and opposition substantially reshape how both pro-democratic and backsliding parties frame RoL issues. When norms collide with strategic party interests, parties can prioritize the latter.