Polish head of state appoints acting Supreme Court president

President Andrzej Duda has appointed Kamil Zaradkiewicz acting first president of Poland's Supreme Court until the court's new head is appointed in a standard procedure, Duda's spokesperson Blazej Spychalski announced on Twitter on Thursday.

Zaradkiewicz will take over from Malgorzata Gersdorf, whose six-year term expires on Thursday.

Gersdorf will be a retired judge from May 1, the Supreme Court's press service said.

In mid-April, Gersdorf cancelled the planned first president election meeting of the Supreme Court's General Assembly due to the coronavirus epidemic and the government's restrictions on human contacts.

Deputy head of the President's Office, Pawel Mucha, told PAP that Duda handed the temporary appointment to Zaradkiewicz at a ceremony held in the Presidential Palace on Thursday morning.

A General Assembly of the Supreme Court should now gather to select five candidates for the court's first president and then present them to Duda, who will appoint the next Supreme Court head out of the selected five, Mucha said.