President’s security adviser wins legal battle with government over access to classified material

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki’s national security adviser has won a legal battle with Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s office and the security services, which have blocking his access to classified information.

Sławomir Cenckiewicz declared that today’s ruling in his favour by the Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) proved that the authorities had been acting “in flagrant violation of the law” by revoking his security clearance.

However, a spokesman for the security services noted that the ruling will not automatically result in Cenckiewicz regaining his clearance. That means the unusual situation in which the president’s chief security official does not have access to classified material is set to continue.

The dispute dates back to July 2024, before Cenkiewicz held his current position, when the head of the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) revoked his access to classified information. The SKW’s decision was then confirmed by the prime minister’s chancellery.

No official reason for the decision was given, but media reports indicate that it was made because the SKW found that Cenckiewicz had failed to disclose, when completing a security vetting questionnaire, medical treatment he was undergoing at the time.

In November 2024, Cenkiewicz appealed against the decision to the provincial administrative court in Warsaw, which in June 2025 ruled in his favour. The prime minister’s chancellery then appealed against that ruling to the NSA, which is Poland’s highest court for administrative matters.

In the meantime, when newly elected President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, took office in August 2025, he appointed Cenkiewicz as the head of his National Security Bureau (BBN), despite Cenckiewicz still not having access to classified material.

Today, Cenkiewicz announced on social media that the NSA had issued a final ruling in his favour, upholding the lower court’s decision to overturn the decision by the SKW and the prime minister’s chancellery to revoke his security clearance.

Cenkiewicz said that the NSA ruling confirmed that the revocation of his security clearance had been a “gross violation of the law”. He called on the defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, to immediately dismiss the head of the SKW, Jarosław Stróżyk.

Strożyk had “entangled the counterintelligence service in political warfare” and sought to “paralyse the functioning of the BBN and thereby the entire president’s office”, said Cenckiewicz.

Nawrocki himself also welcomed the ruling as a “victory of truth over lies”. However, he added that he “regrets we live in times when those in power, in the name of political struggle, and lacking arguments, resort to the most vile methods”.

Subsequently, the spokesman for Poland’s security services, Jacek Dobrzyński, confirmed that the NSA had dismissed the appeal. However, he added that this did not mean Cenckiewicz would automatically and immediately regain security clearance.

It simply means that the security services would now have to again conduct an assessment, including “the unresolved issue of whether Sławomir Cenckiewicz provides a guarantee of maintaining secrecy, which is a necessary condition for access to classified information”, explained Dobrzyński.

He added that, when making their assessment, the security services would take into account the fact that Cenckiewicz is currently subject to criminal proceedings for allegedly disclosing state secrets while previously working as head of the Military Historical Office (WBH).

Prosecutors last year charged Cenckiewicz with aiding and abetting former PiS defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak in unlawfully declassifying and publishing secret military plans as part of an effort to discredit Tusk ahead of the 2023 parliamentary elections.

Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading newspaper sympathetic towards the Tusk government, wrote today that, even with a favourable NSA ruling, Cenckiewicz “has no chance of regaining his security clearance”.

They noted that, as well as his issues with the SKW, Cenckiewicz has also drawn interest from the Internal Security Agency (ABW), which in February notified prosecutors that he had attended a meeting of the National Security Council despite having had his security clearance revoked.

Nawrocki and the government have been in constant conflict with one another, with the president regularly vetoing bills and, most recently, blocking the appointment of constitutional court judges.

However, on issues of national security, the two sides have tried to present a more united front. This morning, before the NSA ruling was announced, Nawrocki’s office announced that the president had finally approved the appointment of 96 ABW officers that he had been delaying for months.

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Mikołaj Bujak/KPRP

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.