Sejm
lower house of Polish parliament

The Sejm (Polish: [sɛjm] ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the transition of government in 1989. Along with the upper house of parliament, the Senate, it forms the national legislature in Poland, known as the National Assembly (Polish: Zgromadzenie Narodowe). The Sejm comprises 460 deputies (singular poseł, rarely deputowany), elected every four years by universal ballot. The Sejm is presided over by a speaker, the Marshal of the Sejm (Marszałek Sejmu).
In the Kingdom of Poland, the term Sejm referred to the entire bicameral parliament, comprising the Chamber of Deputies (Izba Poselska) and the Senate, with the King presiding. It was thus a three-estate parliament. The 1573 Henrician Articles strengthened the assembly's jurisdiction, making Poland a constitutional elective monarchy. Since the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), Sejm has referred only to the lower house of parliament.
During the existence of the Polish People's Republic, the Sejm, then a unicameral parliament, was the nominal supreme organ of state power in the country.
“Sejm” enters the record as lower house of Polish parliament. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sejm, lower and house can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Sejm” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sejm, lower and house provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q98964. VIAF identifies the subject as 122508542. The Library of Congress control number is n50070334. 5 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 1573, 1918 and 1939.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sejm” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.