For those concerned about the state of the rule of law, the wrangling over the Holocaust law offers a window into how politicized the judicial system has already become. The law applies to statements made within Poland and beyond its borders.

When the law passed, Polish leaders said their goal was to ensure a full understanding of the tragic history of Poland during the war, when some three million ethnic Poles were killed along with three million Jews living in Poland — nearly half of all the Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Many Polish citizens have long objected to the use of the phrase “Polish death camps” to refer to the concentration camps installed and controlled by Nazi Germany. Poland never installed a collaborationist government: It ceased to exist as a nation after was invaded at the outset of the war and carved up by Germany and the Soviet Union.

As time passes, there is a legitimate fear in Poland that because many of the killing grounds located in Poland still remain the most powerful symbols of the horror of the Holocaust, historical memory will blur Poland’s complicated past.

The law, however, went further than trying to prevent the use of the phrase “Polish death camps.” It sought to criminalize any accusation that Polish nation was complicit in the carnage and was written in such a broad way that scholars, journalists and historians worried that it could be abused to stifle any discussion of the roles played by individual Poles.

As the bill was being debated, critics called it a violation of the country’s Constitution; normally, it would have been sent it to the Constitutional Tribunal for review.

At first, that did not happen. Mr. Duda signed the law in February and then sent it to the court for review, delaying implementation.