Professor Zbigniew Rau is a Polish lawyer, university lecturer and professor of law. He served as senator of the 6th term and governor of the Lodz Province in 2015-2019. In 2019, he was elected as an MP of the 9th term.
In 1977, he graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Lodz. He finished his PhD studies in 1982. In 1996, he obtained his post-doctoral degree in law and became professor in 2005. He heads the Department of Political and Legal Doctrines and the Alexis de Tocqueville Centre for Political and Legal Thought at the Lodz University.
Zbigniew Rau lectured at German, Dutch, British, US and Australian universities, and held their grants for many years. Among these universities were: Universität Trier, Universität Gießen, International Law School, University of Limburg (Maastricht), Trinity College, Cambridge University (Cambridge), Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin, Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green), Hoover Institution, Stanford University (Stanford), Murphy Institute of Political Economy, Tulane University (New Orleans), Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University (Canberra).
In 1980, he joined the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union “Solidarity”, where he was an expert tasked with verifying appointments to the Inter-company Founding Committee of the “Solidarity” trade union of the Lodz region.
In 2005-2007, during his term as a senator, he was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. During his term as an MP from November 2019 to August 2020, he chaired the Sejm Foreign Affairs Committee, headed the Polish Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and led the Polish-British Parliamentary Group.