Senate of Poland
upper house of the Polish parliament
The Senate (Polish: Senat) is the upper house of the Polish parliament, the lower house being the Sejm. The history of the Polish Senate stretches back over 500 years; it was one of the first constituent bodies of a bicameral parliament in Europe and existed without hiatus until the final partition of the Polish state in 1795. The contemporary Senate is composed of 100 senators elected by a universal ballot and is headed by the Marshal of the Senate (Marszałek Senatu). The incumbent Marshal of the Senate is Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska.
Following a brief period of existence under the Second Polish Republic, the Senate was again abolished by the authorities of the Polish People's Republic. It was not re-established until the collapse of the communist government and reinstatement of democracy in Poland in 1989. The Senate is based in Warsaw and is located in a building which forms part of the Sejm Complex on Wiejska Street, in close proximity to the Three Crosses Square and Ujazdów Castle.
Like most parliaments in the European Union, Poland's parliament is asymmetric, where the lower chamber is dominant over the upper chamber. Unlike the Sejm, the Senate cannot unilaterally veto legislation nor can it bring down the government in a vote of no confidence, and the chamber and its members generally receive far less attention compared to the Sejm.
Role
In line with Article 10, Paragraph 2, and Article 95 of the Polish Constitution of 2 April 1997, the Senate and the Sejm exercise legislative power.
“Senate of Poland” enters the record as upper house of the Polish parliament. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Senate, Poland and upper can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q98975. VIAF identifies the subject as 166942912. The Library of Congress control number is n92006828. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1795, 1989 and 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Senate of Poland” 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.