Andrzej Duda

Andrzej Sebastian Duda was born on 16 May 1972 in Kraków, to Janina (Milewska) and Jan Tadeusz Duda, professors at the AGH University of Science and Technology. His grandfather fought in the Polish–Soviet War and later was a member of the Home Army during the Second World War. Between 1987 and 1991, Duda attended Jan III Sobieski High School, Kraków, where he excelled in Humanities. He subsequently studied law at the Jagiellonian University, and earned a law degree. In 2001, he was appointed as a research assistant in the Department of Administrative Law of the Jagiellonian University's Faculty of Law and Administration. In January 2005, Duda earned a Doctor of Law degree (LL.D.) at the Jagiellonian University. Due to his political career, he has been mostly on unpaid leave from the university since September 2006, except for a 13-month interval beginning in September 2010, when he returned to the university. Additionally, he was a lecturer at Mieszko I College of Education and Administration, Poznań. == Political career ==

appointing Duda as undersecretary of state in the Chancellery of the President, 16 January 2008 Duda began his political career with the now defunct Freedom Union party in the early 2000s. After the parliamentary elections in 2005, he began his collaboration with the Law and Justice Party (PiS). He was an undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Justice between 2006 and 2007 before becoming a member of Polish State Tribunal from 2007 until 2008. From 2008 to 2010, during the presidency of Lech Kaczyński, Duda was an undersecretary of state in the Chancellery of the President. In 2010, he was an unsuccessful candidate to become the Mayor of Kraków as a PiS candidate, but was more successful in the 2011 parliamentary election, where he received 79,981 votes for the Kraków area, and thus became a member of the Sejm. In September 2013, the news magazine Polityka commended Duda for being one of the most active members of parliament, describing him as being open to opposition arguments and as refraining from personal attacks, as part of his role at the Commission for Constitutional Responsibility. Duda remained a member of the Sejm until he was elected to the European Parliament in 2014. 2015 presidential campaign As Bronisław Komorowski's presidential term was expiring, Komorowski was able to seek re-election in a scheduled presidential election. Duda was Komorowski's Law and Justice rival in the election. In the first round of the 2015 presidential election, Duda came first, receiving 5,179,092 votes and thus 34.76% of valid votes. In the second round Duda took 51.55% of the vote against the 48.45% share of his rival, the incumbent president Bronisław Komorowski. On 26 May 2015, he officially resigned from party membership; recent precedent calls for the president to not be a formal member of a political party. 2020 presidential campaign In the first round of the 2020 presidential election, Duda appeared to come in first, receiving almost 44% of the votes. Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski came in second, with just over 30% of the vote. The second round took place on 12 July. Duda won reelection with 51.03%. == Presidency (2015–2025) ==

signing a declaration on strategic partnership, June 2016 in Warsaw, March 2022 The first five-year term of Andrzej Duda began on 6 August 2015 with taking an oath of office during a National Assembly session. Duda rejected the European Union's proposal of migrant quotas to redistribute asylum seekers, saying: "I won't agree to a dictate of the strong. I won't back a Europe where the economic advantage of the size of a population will be a reason to force solutions on other countries regardless of their national interests". In September 2015 Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz declared that Poland, as an expression of "European solidarity", would take in 2,000 people over the next two years, mainly from Syria and Eritrea (out of 3,700 originally requested). Duda and Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović were the originators of the Three Seas Initiative. Duda repeatedly met with general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, stating that "Polish companies will benefit hugely" from China's Belt and Road Initiative. Duda and Xi signed a declaration on strategic partnership in which they reiterated that Poland and China viewed each other as long-term strategic partners. Duda said that he hopes Poland will become a gateway to Europe for China. In September 2017, his approval rating stood at 71% and in February 2018, at 72%, a record surpassed only by Aleksander Kwaśniewski, whose approval ratings surpassed 75% from 1995 to 2005. On 27 December 2021, Duda vetoed Lex TVN bill, a PiS government bill to counter foreign ownership in Polish media. In 2022, Duda vetoed a proposed reform of the Polish educational system, dubbed in Polish media "Lex Czarnek". It has been described as controversial due to its implied criticism of the teachings on liberal issues such as LGBT rights and sex education. On 6 June 2023, Duda presented three goals of Poland's presidency in the European Union in the first half of 2025. The first goal is to deepen transatlantic cooperation and strengthen the relationship between the European Union and the United States. The second goal is to further expand the community to include Ukraine, Moldova, and the Western Balkans, and in the future, other aspiring countries as well. The third goal will be to enhance Europe's energy security. In 2024, Duda criticised plans by Prime Minister Donald Tusk to suspend the right to asylum in Poland by irregular migrants, calling it a "fatal mistake" that would also affect dissidents from Russia and Belarus. Pardon of Mariusz Kamiński In November 2015, on the basis of Article 139 of the Constitution of Poland, Duda pardoned former Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) head Mariusz Kamiński and three CBA officers convicted by a court of 1st instance in the so-called , marking the first pardon granted by a president before reaching a final verdict. According to some lawyers (including professors Jan Zimmermann – Andrzej Duda's doctorate promoter, Leszek Kubicki – former Minister of Justice and Andrzej Zoll – former president of the Constitutional Tribunal) Duda acted in violation of the Constitution of Poland. Constitutional crisis Andrzej Duda refused to swear in any of the five Constitutional Tribunal judge candidates selected by the Sejm of the VII term. Three of them had been selected since 7 November 2015 whose election was declared constitutional. Between 3 and 9 December 2015, Duda swore in five other candidates for the same office selected by the Sejm of the VIII term. On 28 December 2015, Duda signed the Constitutional Tribunal bill (passed on 22 December 2015 by the Sejm), which unequivocally breaches the Constitution of Poland according to the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland, the Public Prosecutor General and the Polish Ombudsman. In July 2017, Duda informed the public he had decided to veto two controversial judicial bills backed by the government and passed by both houses of the Polish parliament. The President's spokesman subsequently said that the third act – the common courts bill – would be signed. The veto was just one example of Duda opposing the policies of PiS. Politics of memory and the Holocaust In February 2018, Duda said that he would sign into law the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, making it illegal to accuse 'the Polish nation' of complicity in the Holocaust and other Nazi German atrocities, a measure that has roiled relations with Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu going as far as accusing the Polish government of "Holocaust denial". In September 2022, Duda and his wife attended the funeral of Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg in the United States, and Duda announced that he was awarding Mosberg the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, the highest Polish award in its class. He awarded it in recognition of Mosberg's achievements in advancing Polish-Jewish dialogue and developing cooperation between nations, and for preserving the memory of and communicating what happened in the Holocaust. In response to Duda's comments, former Prime Minister of Belgium Elio Di Rupo publicly asked the European Commission for an official reaction. Soon after his comments, Duda invited presidential candidate Robert Biedroń (who had asked to meet the president) and an LGBTQ activist, Bartosz Staszewski, to the Presidential Palace, though Robert Biedroń eventually turned down the invitation, refusing to meet President Duda until he apologized. According to Staszewski, during their meeting Duda cited freedom of speech to defend his words about "LGBTQ ideology". Foreign policy in Sofia, on 27 November 2018 . in New York, 21 September 2021 in April 2022 in Rome, on 18 October 2022 and Gitanas Nausėda held a meeting in the format of the Lublin Triangle in Lviv, Ukraine, 11 January 2023 In October 2017, he met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and supported Turkey's accession to the European Union. U.S. President Donald Trump praised Duda, saying: "He's doing a terrific job." In September 2019, Trump and Duda agreed to send 1,000 U.S. troops to Poland. On 24 June 2020, Trump said at a press conference with Duda that the United States planned to move some U.S. troops from Germany to Poland. Trump said that "Poland is one of the few countries that are fulfilling their obligations under NATO — in particular, their monetary obligations — and they asked us if we would send some additional troops. They're going to pay for that." In February 2022, Duda attended the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Some Polish diplomats criticised Duda's visit to China because some of Poland's Western allies boycotted the Winter Olympics in China due to the alleged Uyghur genocide and other human rights abuses in China. In October 2022, Duda declared that Poland would be willing to host U.S. nuclear weapons. In March 2023, Duda visited gas-rich Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He focused on energy security and cooperation. On 7 October 2023, he condemned Hamas' actions during the Gaza war and expressed his support to Israel and its right to self-defense. On 9 January 2025, Duda asked Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his government to guarantee safe passage for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to travel to an event marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by Soviet troops, despite Netanyahu facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for Israeli war crimes in the Gaza war. In response, Tusk guaranteed safe passage for Netanyahu. Lex Tusk On 29 May 2023, during a press conference, Duda announced the intention to sign the "Lex Tusk", a law establishing a commission to investigate Russian influence in Poland. According to the law, the commission is expected to publish its first report in September before the parliamentary elections. The law reached the president's desk after the Sejm rejected the Senate's veto on the matter on 26 May. The Senate recommended the rejection of the law in its entirety due to its anti-democratic nature, numerous errors, and 13 potential violations of the constitution. On 7 June 2023, the European Commission initiated legal proceedings against Poland regarding the extensively debated law. Brussels was concerned that the law might be used to target opposition politicians in the country's general election which was scheduled, and took place, in late 2023. == Post-presidency (2025–present) ==

Duda's term ended on 6 August 2025. On the same day, he released a biographical book titled It’s Me, which he worked on together with Maciej Zdziarski. He promoted the book in conversations with podcasters. On 1 September 2025, in an interview with journalist Bogdan Rymanowski, he revealed his plan to establish a think tank. In September 2025, he also began a collaboration with Chanel Zero to produce his own program series, which is scheduled to air starting on 15 September 2025. In October 2025 he joined ZEN.com fintech as the board member. == Personal life ==

Duda is married to Agata Kornhauser-Duda, a teacher of German at Jan III Sobieski High School in Kraków. They met as high school students, at a party. They have one daughter named Kinga (b. 1995). Duda's father-in-law is Julian Kornhauser, a well-known writer, translator and literary critic. Duda is a keen skier, and he participated in the Polish Academic Championships in Alpine skiing while he was a university student. == Honours and awards ==

National honours Foreign honours • • : Gold Olympic Order (23 July 2022) • Polish Orthodox Church: Order of Saint Mary Magdalene, 1st Class (14 November 2024) == See also ==