Case C-159/25, Rowicz – the generator that picks your judge
Random allocation of cases is supposed to be the cure for the manipulated docket — nobody can steer a case to a friendly judge if a machine does the picking. This reference asks what happens when the machine belongs to the executive and nobody is allowed to look inside it.
Facts
Proceedings before the Sąd Okręgowy w Warszawie (Regional Court, Warsaw) changed hands. The college of the regional court released the judge previously assigned from the cases already allocated to her — on the referring court’s account, contrary to the national rules on case assignment, without the statutory criteria being met, and in breach of the principle that a change of composition is permitted only where the existing composition faces a lasting obstacle. A replacement judge was then drawn by SLPS, the system for the randomised allocation of cases. SLPS was developed by the Minister for Justice — a member of the executive — and operates under rules laid down in that Minister’s own regulation. Its source code is not published; neither the parties nor the judge can verify how the algorithm works or how exposed it is to error and manipulation, the only public information being a notice on the Public Information Bulletin website. Nor does national law give the judge any remedy against the administrative decision allocating the case. (Rowicz is a fictitious case name assigned under the Court’s anonymisation practice; it does not correspond to any party.)
Questions Referred
According to the Official Journal notice, the Sąd Okręgowy w Warszawie asks:
In the light of Article 2 and the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) of the Treaty on European Union, read in conjunction with Articles 20 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and recital 61 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 … (Artificial Intelligence Act), does an ordinary court of last instance of a Member State whose composition includes a judge of that court designated by a random number generator to hear the case on the basis of the draw report and a prior decision of the college of the court constitute an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law that ensures cases are heard without undue delay in a non-discriminatory manner and guarantees effective judicial protection in circumstances where:
1. a court administrative body such as the Kolegium Sądu Okręgowego (college of the regional court) arbitrarily released the previously assigned judge from the obligation to hear the cases already assigned to her, contrary to the provisions of national law on the assignment of cases, despite the fact that the national statutory criteria for releasing her from that obligation were not met, and did so in breach of the principle that a change in the composition of the court may only occur where it is impossible for the court to hear the case in its existing composition or where there is a lasting obstacle to it hearing the case in its existing composition;
2. a new judge was assigned using the SLPS random case allocation generator developed by a member of the executive branch of government, namely the Minister Sprawiedliwości (Minister for Justice), under the rules for the randomised assignment of cases in courts established by way of a regulation issued by that Minister … and in a manner that infringes the right to an independent and impartial tribunal and the right to a tribunal established by law;
3. a new judge was assigned using the SLPS random case allocation generator without knowledge of the source code or the ability to verify the operation of the SLPS algorithm for random case allocation to judges, where information on that system was published only on the Biuletyn Informacji Publicznej [Public Information Bulletin] website, or the ability to ascertain the vulnerability of the random case allocation tool to errors and manipulation, in a manner that infringes the parties’ right to a fair trial;
4. a new judge was assigned using the SLPS random case allocation generator … in a manner that infringes the parties’ right to have their cases heard without undue delay through a failure to guarantee an even workload for judges as a result of the operation of the SLPS, in a manner that discriminates against the parties and infringes the principle of equality before the law;
5. this results in the judge hearing the case in proceedings that are invalid on account of the composition of the court being contrary to the provisions of law and the parties not being afforded effective judicial protection;
6. there is no effective remedy in national law available to the judge against a written decision of the court administrative body regarding the allocation of the case, the assignment of judges and the composition of the court, as there is no judicial remedy enabling the judge to challenge such a written decision before an impartial and independent tribunal in proceedings that meet the requirements arising from Articles 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights?
Sources
OJ notice C/2025/3261 (EUR‑Lex) · Case file on CURIA · Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Artificial Intelligence Act) · Charter of Fundamental Rights
Comment
The Polish rule-of-law case law has so far been about who a judge is — how they were appointed, by which body, on whose nomination. Rowicz moves the question one step downstream and asks about how a judge got the case. That is new ground, and the referring court has chosen its authority well.
Case C‑487/19, W.Ż. (ECLI:EU:C:2021:798) supplies the test. There the Court held that a national court must declare null and void an order made by a single judge sitting at last instance where it follows from all the conditions and circumstances of that judge’s appointment that the appointment took place in clear breach of fundamental rules forming an integral part of the establishment and functioning of the judicial system, and that the integrity of the outcome was undermined, giving rise to reasonable doubt in the minds of individuals as to the judge’s independence and impartiality. Two elements travel across cleanly. First, the standard is not proof of actual bias but reasonable doubt in the minds of individuals — appearances are the subject-matter, not a proxy for it. Second, the consequence is severe: not a remedy against the administration, but the nullity of what the wrongly-composed court decided.
The first limb of the question already looks like a “clear breach of fundamental rules”: on the referring court’s account, the college released the assigned judge without the statutory grounds and against the rule that composition changes only where the existing bench faces a lasting obstacle. If that is right, the draw was not a neutral event at all — it was the second half of a move that began with removing a judge who should not have been removed. A randomiser applied after an irregular removal launders the irregularity: the outcome looks like chance because the intervention happened one step earlier.
The third limb is the one with the longest reach, and it is the reason this reference matters beyond Poland. The parties cannot see the source code, cannot verify the algorithm’s operation, and cannot assess its vulnerability to error or manipulation. A presumption of regularity is ordinarily rebuttable; here it is unrebuttable by construction. Asking a party to accept that the draw was fair, while denying them any means of checking, converts a procedural guarantee into an article of faith. Many Member States now allocate cases by software; if the Court answers that verifiability is a component of “a tribunal established by law”, every one of those systems becomes auditable, and the Ministry-authored ones become awkward.
The Artificial Intelligence Act appears here only through recital 61, and its role is interpretive rather than operative — the Regulation was not applicable to these events, and a random number generator is not obviously an AI system. But the recital states the principle the referring court needs: AI systems used to assist judicial authorities are classified as high-risk precisely “to address the risks of potential biases, errors and opacity”, and “the use of AI tools can support the decision-making power of judges or judicial independence, but should not replace it: the final decision-making must remain a human-driven activity.” The Union legislature has already accepted that software touching the judicial function needs transparency guarantees. Rowicz asks the Court to say whether Article 19(1) TEU demanded them all along.