There are various wonders, a great person, and some other mechanics, that add policy slots. When this happens, it is mandatory to fill up the additional slot, and you can't end your turn until you do. The problem with this is that if you change your policies, save them, and encounter this growth during your turn (boosted wonder, great person), you can't change it again, so you're stuck on that turn. You have to reload a previous turn to bypass this. I'd also like to mention that I don't know if this happens in a "normal" situation, because I've triggered it when I had a military and economic policy added during the turn, so I changed the policies due to the first one, then couldn't do so for the second, so it might be just when you add two policy slots during turn (not at the beginning, when the constructions finish normally).