Polish Case Law MCP (polish-caselaw-mcp)

An MCP server exposing Polish court case law (orzecznictwo) live from the SAOS API. It has no local database — every tool call queries SAOS at request time.

The response envelope and the artNNNparN article-reference scheme mirror polish-law-mcp (Polish statutes from ISAP), so a client can compose both servers and follow a judgment straight to the provision it cites. This is an independent implementation that shares those conventions for interoperability; it is not derived from that server's code.

Tools

• search_case_law — search judgments (query, court type, dates, sort, limit)
• get_judgment — full judgment by SAOS id (text, judges, referenced regulations as ELI ids + article refs)
• find_judgments_for_provision — judgments citing a statute provision (pl-du-YYYY-NNN), verified against referenced regulations
• check_constitutional_status — Constitutional Tribunal (TK) judgments citing a provision (does NOT assert the provision was struck down — read the operative part)
• list_courts — court types for filtering
• caselaw_about / caselaw_list_sources — provenance and legal basis (prefixed to avoid name clashes with sibling MCP servers in a gateway)

All tools return { results, _metadata } (ToolResponse). get_judgment exposes referenced_regulations[].articles_refs for cross-server linking.

Run

npm install
npm run build
npm start            # stdio MCP server

Install

The server speaks MCP over stdio. Pick whichever setup matches your client.

Docker MCP Gateway

mcp-gateway-server.yaml already points at the published image, so no build is needed:

docker mcp profile server add default --server file://"$PWD/mcp-gateway-server.yaml"

To run your own build instead, set image: in that file to a local tag and build it first:

docker build -t polish-caselaw-mcp:local .

The gateway's --block-network flag cuts SAOS off; tools then return a clear network error rather than hanging.

Standalone — Docker

Any MCP client that launches a stdio command can run the image directly. --rm -i matters: the server talks over stdin/stdout and should not outlive the client.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "polish-caselaw": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "ghcr.io/pawelharacz/polish-caselaw-mcp:latest"]
    }
  }
}

Pass configuration through with -e:

"args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "-e", "SAOS_TIMEOUT_MS=60000",
         "ghcr.io/pawelharacz/polish-caselaw-mcp:latest"]

Standalone — Node

Without Docker, point the client at the built entrypoint:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "polish-caselaw": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/polish-caselaw-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": { "SAOS_TIMEOUT_MS": "60000" }
    }
  }
}

Run npm install && npm run build first — dist/ is not committed.

Claude Code

claude mcp add polish-caselaw -- docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/pawelharacz/polish-caselaw-mcp:latest

Verify with /mcp, then call caselaw_about — it returns provenance without touching SAOS, so it confirms the server is wired up even if the API is slow.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Purpose
SAOS_TIMEOUT_MS	45000	HTTP timeout per SAOS request. /search/judgments regularly takes 20–35s under load, so short timeouts abort requests that would have succeeded.
SAOS_RETRY_BACKOFF_MS	500	Delay before the single retry, so a slow upstream is not hit again immediately.

Legal

Court decisions are not statutes. See sources.yml for the legal basis. Research tool, not legal advice — verify against official court portals.

License

Apache-2.0