Since 2017, a series of protests against judiciary reforms have occurred in Poland. Since Law and Justice took power in Poland in 2015, its influence rapidly extended to the judicial branch, through contended nominations that produced the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The Law and Justice party argues that the reforms are needed to improve the efficiency of the judiciary, but the opposition, supported by a significant number of members of the judiciary, has been very critical of the reforms. The reforms have also been criticized by a number of international bodies. The European Commission invokes the Article 7 of the European Treaty against E.U. member Poland, denouncing recent judiciary reforms putting it under the political control of the ruling majority and citing "serious risk [to] the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers".

The Polish constitutional crisis, also known as the Polish rule-of-law crisis, is a political conflict ongoing since 2015 in which the Polish government has been accused of failing to comply with European and Polish constitutional law. The 2015 elections resulted in the Law and Justice party winning control of both the presidency and the parliament. With this government trifecta, PiS used its power to appoint judges to the Constitutional Tribunal in 2015, leading to the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The government of Poland continued to expand its hold on the judiciary resulting in the 2017 Supreme Court crisis, and the 2019 Polish judicial disciplinary panel law. These events allowed the legislature and executive of the Polish government to have de facto control over judges and their appointments.