Sabbat completed secondary school in Mielec, and studied law at the Warsaw University shortly before World War II.

Wounded during the Polish retreat in 1939, he managed to reach Great Britain where he was directed to the British General Staff as an officer responsible for youth.

As an executive of the National Union he managed the Treasury Division, and in 1976 became the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile.

He attempted to unite the various émigré circles and created ever stronger links with the opposition movement in Poland, which benefited from the Government in exile's moral and material help through different Funds.

Ryszard Kaczorowski, Minister of Domestic Affairs and designated successor, took office in exile and on 22 December 1990, after the first free and fair elections in Poland since the war, handed his powers and the insignia of the Polish Second Republic to President-elect Lech Wałęsa.