In 2012, the idea of establishing the Ordo Iuris Institute was first conceived. The first joint project of the newly formed community was an international scientific conference “Doctrinal Foundations and Legal Conditions of the Protection of Human Life in the Prenatal Phase – an International Perspective”, held at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw.

On 14 August 2013 we officially registered the Ordo Iuris Institute.

This was our first success in court. Just two weeks after our official registration, we provided legal assistance to a single mother whose children had been taken from her – without a court order and in violation of the law. The woman was even denied a public defender.
It was only after extensive support from Ordo Iuris lawyers that the Warsaw District Court ended Ms Katarzyna’s months-long ordeal and allowed the children to return to their family home.

The Ordo Iuris Institute was the first Polish think-tank to analyse the content of the Istanbul Convention. At the time, we prepared a comprehensive report that guided the Polish public debate on the Council of Europe’s misleading document and ultimately led to the Polish Prime Minister’s request to the Constitutional Tribunal to examine the compatibility of the gender Convention with the Polish Constitution.

In 2014, we had our first victory in the fight to guarantee constitutional freedom of speech for pro-life activists who publicly state that abortion is the killing of a human being. We won for the first time on behalf of the activists of the Pro-Life Foundation from Opoczno, who organised the anti-abortion exhibition “Choose Life”.

We have risen in defence of prof. Bogdan Chazan – director of the Holy Family Hospital in Warsaw – who refused to perform abortions invoking the “conscience clause”. As a result, the doctor lost his job and became the subject of an aggressive media campaign. The whole case proved to be a breakthrough in the conscience clause debate. In 2015, the case was taken up by the Constitutional Tribunal, which in its ruling reaffirmed the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Polish Constitution. The European Court of Human Rights rejected the claim of a patient of Prof. Chazan. We also forced radical politicians to publicly apologise to the professor for the insults they had hurled at him.

One of the core activities of the Ordo Iuris Institute is the intellectual and ethical training of young lawyers. Through the Internship Programme, students and graduates of law and other social sciences improve their skills under the guidance of experienced Ordo Iuris lawyers. The best of them have become regular staff members of the Institute.

We have come to the defence of Dr Paul Cameron, the American psychologist who was the target of an unprecedented attack by LGBT activists who tried to block his lectures in Poland. Thanks to our intervention, the slanderers, who have damaged the good name and academic reputation of the American psychologist, have been forced to apologise.

For years, Poland has been heading inexorably towards a demographic collapse. The experience of European countries shows that well-designed pro-family policies can help increase the birth rate. That is why we prepared a comprehensive report analysing the situation and demographic policies of Poland and other European countries, and proposing major systemic changes. The report initiated a public debate on effective pro-family policy instruments, which later led to the introduction of government programmes to support families.

Nearly half a million Poles supported the Stop Abortion Citizens’ Initiative project, co-organised by the Ordo Iuris Institute. Although the initiative itself did not succeed at the first attempt, it weakened the position of the abortion lobby to such an extent that in 2022 the Constitutional Tribunal finally put an end to the ordeal of unborn disabled children by banning eugenic abortion in Poland.

The reform of the Polish courts, launched in 2016, led to the spread of many unfair opinions about Poland. European media and politicians spoke of a threat to Polish democracy and the rule of law, and public debate was dominated by emotional and oversimplified messages.  For this reason, the Institute prepared the first English-language report with a thorough analysis of the solutions put forward.

In order to strengthen the voice of the defenders of life, family and freedom in the EU area, we opened an Ordo Iuris office in Brussels. This has enabled us to follow in detail the work of all the decision-making institutions of the European Union.

In 2016, we inaugurated Poland’s first Centre for Religious Freedom, which continues to monitor, report and intervene in the growing number of cases of discrimination, aggression and hate crimes against Christians in Poland.

The activities of the Ordo Iuris Institute are possible through the generosity of donors who understand that our engagement requires regular support. With this in mind, we have established the Ordo Iuris Circle of Friends – a programme for people who are particularly committed to the Institute’s mission. It is a group of donors whose monthly donations make it possible for us to work in an effective and professional manner.

Rebecca Kiessling, a leading pro-life activist in the US and president of the ‘Save the 1’ Foundation, found out at the age of 18 that she was a child conceived as a result of rape and was only alive because US law at the time outlawed abortion. During her first visit to Poland, we organised a series of educational meetings across the country. Under pressure from pro-abortion groups, many universities blocked the planned events, which the Institute challenged. Recognising the problems of academic freedom in Poland, we led to the introduction of the Academic Freedom Package in 2021, modelled on our proposed solutions.

Lawyers from the Ordo Iuris Institute defended Silje Garmo, who fled Norway, against unjustified interference in her family life by the Norwegian Children’s Services (Barnevernet). For several years, the Ordo Iuris Institute fought for the Norwegian woman’s right to bring up her own child. In the end, the case ended with our complete success. Silje Garmo and little Eira became the first Norwegian women to be granted political asylum in another country after the Second World War.

Ordo Iuris has been granted special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. This status allows us to actively contribute to the work of one of the six main UN bodies and take part in implementing plans, programmes, and declarations adopted by the United Nations.

Responding to numerous reports from concerned parents regarding the ideological indoctrination of their children, we conducted a comprehensive inspection of the legality of activities carried out by organizations providing extracurricular activities in Polish schools.  Additionally, we developed a guide for parents on safeguarding their children and a template of a statement for parents to submit to their children’s schools protecting their rights.

When the Council of Europe conducted an international review of the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on measures to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, we prepared a statement at the Institute outlining the actual state of implementation of the recommendations in Poland.  We also debunked myths about alleged discrimination against LGBT communities in our country.

On 9 June 2018, we organized the Forum on Rights and Freedoms at the National Stadium to mark the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The 11 interdisciplinary panels brought together eminent lawyers, judges (including Supreme Court and Constitutional Court judges), academics, journalists, publicists, social activists, civil servants, and entrepreneurs to discuss the nature and protection of human and civil rights. President Andrzej Duda addressed a letter to the participants of the Forum.

‘Legal Culture’ is an interdisciplinary scholarly periodical published by the Ordo Iuris Institute, which publishes Polish and English language articles, commentaries, and reviews on all legal issues from the disciplines of philosophy, history of political and legal thought, political science, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies.  The periodical’s scientific board includes prominent scholars from Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States.

The story of little Alfie Evans, who was taken off life support, shocked the world.  Ordo Iuris supported British lawyers and the child’s parents in the legal battle and in the search for a hospital willing to accept the boy.  Using our consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council, we submitted our views on the case to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

Wishing to create an alternative to the Istanbul Convention, Ordo Iuris lawyers prepared a draft Convention on the Rights of the Family, which we presented in the European Parliament and at conferences in France, Romania, Croatia, and Slovakia, and even at the UN in New York. Our draft was supported by the Polish Foreign Minister, the Italian Minister for the Family, and dozens of social and professional organizations from Germany, Norway, Hungary, and Bulgaria.

Due to the Institute’s dynamic growth, in 2019 we moved from 3 smaller offices in Warsaw to a single space in the heart of the city – in the historic PAST building, home to the Polish soldiers who fought the Nazi occupiers during the Warsaw Uprising. We had previously renovated the building with great support from donors. To this day, a plaque in the centre of the office commemorates the donors who supported the renovation.

When the Mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, announced the adoption of an ideological ‘LGBT+ Declaration’, we not only opposed the ideological demands of the document, but in response drafted the Local Government Charter on the Rights of the Family – a pro-family resolution for Polish municipalities, districts and voivodships. To date, our resolution has been adopted by more than 40 local authorities across the country.

The Ordo Iuris Institute considers it one of its most important tasks to train a new generation of professional and effective lawyers who will courageously defend the fundamental values of the Polish Constitution.
For this reason, together with academic circles at universities throughout Poland, we regularly organise training courses for students, postgraduates and graduates of law and other social sciences and humanities. Participants of the Ordo Iuris Academy can not only broaden their knowledge of constitutional, civil, family, criminal, administrative, economic or international law, but also learn the art of self-presentation or media speaking.

In 2019, we attended a summit in Nairobi that attempted to illegally recognise abortion as a human right. Although the host organisers did everything they could to prevent pro-life and pro-family people from attending the summit, our voice was heard. Through our involvement, a coalition was formed to oppose the ideological provisions of the conference, which blocked the inclusion of radical demands in the final provisions of the summit.

The Supreme Administrative Court has issued a decision stating that the Law on Civil Registry “does not permit the transcription of a foreign birth certificate of a child in which persons of the same sex are listed as parents”. The decision aligns fully with the position that Ordo Iuris had previously presented to the court in the case in which we were involved.

One of the Institute’s many activities against the anti-family Istanbul Convention was a report on its ideological nature, its incompatibility with the Polish Constitution, its flaws in the ratification process and its misidentification of the causes of violence.  On behalf of more than twenty NGOs from across Europe and 60,000 citizens, we also launched a petition to the European Commission to stop attempts to impose the radical demands of the Convention at European Union level.

Poland’s ratification of the gender Istanbul Convention dealt a significant blow to the institution of the family.  This Convention represents the first instance in international law legally binding Poland where the term ‘gender’ is included, effectively negating the biological distinction between male and female. In response, along with a broad coalition of NGOs, we initiated the Citizens’ Legislative Initiative ‘Yes to the Family, No to Gender’. Together, we amassed over 150,000 signatures advocating for the repeal of the gender-based Istanbul Convention and its replacement with the Convention on Family Rights drafted by Ordo Iuris lawyers.

Through our swift response to plans for a UN Human Rights Council resolution on gender equality in sports, Poland successfully obstructed the EU consensus on the matter. Consequently, the contentious document proposing that men who identify as women should participate in women’s sports with minimal restrictions was removed from the UN agenda without debate.

The pinnacle of our perennial effort to elevate the standard of pro-life care in Poland was the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling prohibiting eugenic practices in Polish hospitals. Ahead of the court proceedings, we submitted an amicus curiae and an English-language submission endorsed by 31 pro-life organizations worldwide.  Our stance was referenced both during the hearing and in the justification of the verdict, which unequivocally states that eugenic abortion violates the Polish Constitution.

Following the Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s declaration of eugenic abortion as unconstitutional, the Geneva Consensus Declaration was signed in Washington. We were the sole European NGO invited by the US government to participate in the signing of the Declaration, wherein over 30 countries worldwide pledged support for life and the real women’s rights.

The Supreme Court has vindicated Mr. Adam, a printshop owner from Łódź, who faced conviction from lower courts for declining to print materials promoting an LGBT organization. Following a year-long legal battle, the case reached the Constitutional Tribunal, which deemed the provision under which the printer was convicted as unconstitutional, prompting legislative amendments.  Finally, after a five-year struggle, the Supreme Court overturned the defendant’s conviction, dismissing all charges against the printer.

In recent years, there has been a gradual expansion of the powers of the European Union at the expense of national governments. Consequently, the European Union is increasingly deviating from its original conception as a community of sovereign nation-states and is edging worryingly closer to becoming a centralised European superstate. Experts from the Ordo Iuris Institute and the Collegium Intermarium have compiled an extensive and comprehensive report on the federalisation of the European Union. In this report, we have identified areas where EU institutions are encroaching upon powers that rightfully belong to member state governments.

We spearheaded an international campaign against surrogacy, denouncing it as a modern form of human trafficking. Crafting the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we aimed to explicitly prohibit commercial surrogacy, along with its advertising and commissioning.  Additionally, we petitioned the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to present and endorse our document at the UN General Assembly. This petition garnered support from over 30 NGOs worldwide. 

The inaugural academic year of the Collegium Intermarium commenced with an international academic conference attended by scholars and politicians from various countries. The conference sought to shed light on the challenges confronting academia in the era of ‘cancel culture’—the ideological onslaught against the freedom of scientific debate and expression.

In 2021, we launched the Collegium Intermarium, an elite university envisioned as a bastion of authentically free academic discourse. Over 40 eminent lawyers, judges, academics, politicians, and publicists from around the globe spoke at the international conference inaugurating the Collegium. The event garnered coverage from major global news agencies such as the Associated Press and Reuters, as well as esteemed media outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, Fox News, and editorials from across Europe and even India.

5 billion 699 million zlotys. That’s the minimum cost incurred by the Polish state in 2019 due to the dissolution of Polish families. Experts from Ordo Iuris, Collegium Intermarium, and the Institute of Family and Social Knowledge produced the first report in Poland and the fourth globally to meticulously analyse the economic toll of family breakdown.

The onset of COVID-19 brought forth a slew of unwarranted restrictions on civil rights and freedoms.  Our legal team provided over 1,000 consultations on pandemic-related restrictions.  We conducted in-depth analyses of government normative acts, exposing numerous violations of the Constitution. Additionally, we authored a series of accessible legal manuals for businesses, parishes, chaplains, and individuals grappling with doubts about COVID-19 vaccination requirements.  A year later, we published the most comprehensive scientific monograph to date on the legal, medical, and economic ramifications of pandemic health restrictions in Poland.

At the 14th edition of the World Congress of Families in Mexico, our Institute was invited to participate in a discussion panel and received accolades for its unwavering commitment to family support.

Lawyers from Ordo Iuris have responded to the draft ‘Gender Equality and Anti-Discrimination Policy’ adopted by the Senate of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Among its provisions, the policy states that referring to another person by their biological sex could constitute harassment. Ordo Iuris experts conducted a legal analysis of the document, revealing that several solutions within it violate both national and international laws.

When the World Health Organisation released a working draft of the pandemic treaty, the Ordo Iuris Institute immediately engaged with this crucial issue.  The WHO’s attempt to assert control over a significant portion of its member states’ sovereignty, previously dismissed as a “conspiracy theory,” was meticulously documented by Ordo Iuris experts. Not only did they expose the actions of international WHO officials, but they also actively voiced opposition at the World Health Organisation and organised a protest against this encroachment on sovereignty.

We responded to the final demands of the “Conference on the Future of Europe,” which endorsed a radical overhaul of the European Union.  Among other measures, it proposed the end of unanimity, the abolition of the right of veto, the establishment of an EU army, and supranational electoral lists. We organised an international debate in Brussels on the conference’s recommendations, where we presented our report critiquing each proposal. Additionally, an international conference on the rule of law was convened to address Eurocrats’ attempts to impose an ideological agenda on member states. During this conference, we presented an English-language report summarising our extensive expertise on the subject.

After nearly a decade of struggle and over 150 court victories, we achieved a significant triumph in the fight for free speech for pro-life activists. 2022 marked a watershed moment, with four Supreme Court rulings affirming pro-life activists’ right to expose the truth about the shocking process and consequences of abortion.  Consequently, pro-abortion factions have begrudgingly accepted defeat and begun to abandon prosecuting pro-life advocates.

Amidst growing public discourse in Poland portraying euthanasia in a positive light, we published a report to ground the debate in facts rather than emotions. The report highlights the dire consequences of legalising euthanasia in Western European countries, focusing particularly on the Netherlands and Belgium, where even newborns with predicted ‘poor quality of life’ due to illness or disability are euthanised.

Following a four-year battle, we secured the final exoneration of Professor Ewa Budzyńska from all disciplinary charges. The Professor faced reprimand for asserting that an unborn human being is a ‘child’ and defining marriage as a ‘union between a man and a woman.’  With steadfast support from Ordo Iuris, Professor Budzyńska has become a symbol in the fight for academic freedom, culminating in an amendment to the Education Act preventing the prosecution of academics for expressing religious, philosophical, or ideological beliefs.

At the end of 2022, we obtained a judgement in one of the most high-profile cases handled by the Institute. In a landmark case handled by the Institute, the District Court for Krakow-Nowa Huta reinstated Janusz Komenda, an IKEA furniture store employee dismissed for refusing to participate in a campaign promoting LGBT demands, citing the Holy Scripture in his objection. This ruling reaffirms the right of employees to express their beliefs at work, a crucial victory for people of faith in Poland.

Experts from Ordo Iuris were invited to the MaterCare International Conference in Rome, where we shared our experience in defending life and advocating for conscience clauses with doctors and lawyers from 14 countries across 4 continents.

After 5 years, we finally secured a victory in a case concerning the transparency of foreign funding. In a dispute with the Batory Foundation (a part of the Open Society Foundations), founded by George Soros and represented by the world’s largest law firm, the Supreme Administrative Court sided with Ordo Iuris lawyers. The court ordered the Foundation to disclose details of the distribution of the so-called Norwegian funds, which have primarily supported organizations promoting abortion and radical ideologies for years.

We assisted a Polish family who had to flee Norway to escape the notorious children’s authority, Barnevernet. After false accusations of domestic violence, the children were placed in foster care for 1.5 years. Upon returning home, the children exhibited signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, and one daughter experienced violence in a juvenile detention centre.  As soon as the children returned home, the family left Norway and returned to Poland. But Barnevernet officials did not give up. Despite the closure of the case, they continued to harass the family, prompting the Braniewo District Court to open an ex officio case. With representation from Ordo Iuris lawyers, the court ruled in favour of the family, affirming parental authority.

In a high-profile case, 24-year-old Marika was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for attempting to yank a canvas bag in the colours of the LGBT flag worth PLN 15 from another person’s hands. After she spent over a year in prison, Marika’s relatives sought assistance from Ordo Iuris lawyers. Following our intervention, the Prosecutor General suspended the sentence, and President Andrzej Duda pardoned her.

With the aid of our lawyers, the first conviction for illegal aiding and abetting a pharmacological abortion was secured. Despite attempts by the abortionists to exclude us from the proceedings, our lawyers actively participated, leading to the conviction of Justyna W. from the Abortion Dream Team, who has been openly mocking Polish law for years by publicly boasting that she distributes abortion pills that are not authorised for sale in Poland. We informed the court of the Institute’s position and took part in every hearing, and the Warsaw-Praga Regional Court sentenced the abortionist to eight months’ restriction of freedom.

In our ongoing battle against abortionists’ misinformation, we published the Pro-Life Encyclopaedia—a comprehensive scientific monograph covering social, medical, and legal aspects of abortion.  This 750-page publication serves as a valuable resource for education on protecting human life during the prenatal stage of development.

Amidst the growing ‘transgender epidemic,’ we introduced a draft law prohibiting the mutilation of minors, garnering significant media attention in Poland.  Alongside the bill, we submitted a detailed explanatory memorandum, debunking the false narrative propagated by trans activists regarding the scientific basis for mutilating minors in the name of gender ideology.

We’ve created the Vademecum of a Catholic—a user-friendly compilation of practical legal advice accessible for free on our website.  It includes handbooks on various topics such as dealing with attacks on religious symbols and places of worship, navigating freedom of conscience and religion in the workplace, guidelines for health care chaplains, rights of parents and teachers in the education system, and guidance for parents on the burial of children lost before birth.

In 2023, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Ordo Iuris Institute with the Ordo Iuris Lions Gala, honouring those who have made significant contributions to defending life, family, freedom, culture, and the Christian heritage of the nation.  Prior to the gala, we hosted an international scientific conference on the cultural aspects of family policy, inviting experts from Poland, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hungary.

To bolster our international efforts, we formalized the establishment of Ordo Iuris International in New York, becoming the first conservative NGO in Europe to have a permanent representative involved in the crucial work of the UN. Through a series of meetings with American partners, we forged partnerships with key American think tanks, community organizations, and opinion media.

In a bid to assist concerned Poles in making informed decisions at the ballot box regarding life, family, and freedom, we developed the Ordo Iuris Parliamentary Compass—an efficient and unbiased tool for evaluating pre-election promises and declarations.  We meticulously analysed how MPs voted on 12 pivotal issues over the last two parliamentary terms concerning the defence of life, family, and freedom.

Based on transparent, objective, and concrete criteria, we established a ranking of MPs who translate their commitment to the fundamental values of our civilization into action.

As the procedure for revision of the EU treaties has begun, we have prepared a report “Why do we need sovereignty?” in which we describe the risk of loss of Poland’s and other nation state’s sovereignty in 10 fundamental areas – foreign and military policy, border defense, cross-border infrastructure, industry, education, monetary policy, family law, climate and health protection policy.

At the end of February, we decided that the two largest independent organizations of defenders of life, family and freedom in Poland, namely the Ordo Iuris Institute and the Center for Life and Family need to join forces. The Center for Life and Family is known not only for organizing the annual nationwide March for Life and Family in Warsaw and coordinating up to 150 local marches throughout Poland, but also for its numerous pickets and demonstrations, social campaigns, production of documentary films, valuable journalistic, formative and educational materials.

We have prepared a book on the fight against an undefined concept of “hate speech”, which is used to censor the freedom of expression. The publication reveals and explains in an accessible way the sources of the concept of “hate speech”, as well as the goals and consequences of its introduction into public debate and into the legal system.