Poland’s president flies home and enters the top court after its chief’s suspension, Reuters and BBC report

Poland’s decade-long fight over its Constitutional Tribunal turned physical overnight. Riot police ringed the court in central Warsaw on Friday, Oct. 30, after a judge backed by the governing coalition said she had suspended the tribunal’s president, and President Karol Nawrocki, who turned his plane back from a trip to Senegal, pushed his way into the building shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday local time, about 5 p.m. PT Friday, according to the Guardian, the BBC, Reuters and Euronews. Each side now accuses the other of breaking the constitution.

The move began on Friday afternoon. Seven people elected as tribunal judges by the Sejm this year entered the building escorted by officers of the State Protection Service, coming through a gate from the prime minister’s chancellery rather than the street, tribunal spokeswoman Weronika Ścibor told the broadcaster Kanał Zero, Notes from Poland reports. A brief notice then appeared on the court’s website announcing an ordered “break in the activities” of tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski and vice-president Bartłomiej Sochański. The notice cited article 130 of the law on common courts, which lets a court president or the justice minister order an immediate break when a judge gets caught in the act of an offense, the outlet reports.

Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska told state broadcaster TVP that she issued the order, according to Notes from Poland, which cites Polskie Radio as reporting that she accused Święczkowski of blocking judges from taking up their posts and of irregularities in assigning judges to cases. Late on Friday the tribunal said its “longest-serving judge” had suspended Święczkowski and now ran the court, Reuters reports. Notes from Poland points out that her seniority claim rests on a judicial career that began in 1995, not on time served at the tribunal, and that she belongs to the five judges elected by the current parliament whom Nawrocki has refused to swear in.

The tribunal’s account on X, still controlled by Święczkowski’s team, answered the same afternoon. In a post at 10:25 a.m. PT Friday, it said, in the English rendering by Notes from Poland, that “an unlawful takeover of the TK’s website has occurred,” that “Bogdan Święczkowski remains chief justice,” and that “Korwin-Piotrowska is not a TK judge.” It added: “All persons participating in these actions are committing the crime of a coup d’état.” Zbigniew Kapiński, first president of the separate Supreme Court, told Kanał Zero he felt “appalled,” calling the events “undoubtedly a coup d’état,” Notes from Poland reports.

The government defended the operation. Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said he had asked to strip Święczkowski and Sochański of their immunity so they could face criminal charges for not allowing the newly elected judges to adjudicate, the BBC reports; Reuters, via NBC News, quotes him as saying the two men failed to fulfill their duties “by preventing judges from performing their work.” Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X at 11:39 a.m. PT Friday, in the translation by Notes from Poland: “Restoring the rule of law is our duty,” adding: “After years of PiS-led lawlessness, this is a difficult process, sometimes painful, and it requires decisive action. There is no other way.”

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, posting in English, wrote that the standoff concerns “restoring rule of law to an institution which had been politicised by the populist government which lost power in the election of 2023,” and added that “the most senior judge of the new majority took charge of the tribunal premises and asked the police” for protection. On Saturday morning he wrote that the night’s events “were not elegant but the alternative was to concede an unconstitutional transformation of Poland into a presidential republic.”

Outside, the night grew tense. Hundreds of protesters, including opposition members of parliament, gathered in support of the suspended judges, and police said they detained three people after some protesters breached the tribunal’s fence and others threw objects at officers, the Guardian reports. Notes from Poland reports that police kept Święczkowski from entering the grounds after his supporters cut through the fence with a power tool. Police said officers entered the court’s premises after incidents that included “the throwing of dangerous objects at police,” according to Reuters, while Anadolu Agency reports that police said they did not enter the building itself. Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński told the crowd that “as of today, Poland has become a police state, and from there it’s a straight path to authoritarianism, and then to totalitarianism,” Notes from Poland reports.

Nawrocki, a PiS-backed conservative, had set off for the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, the BBC reports. At 10:12 a.m. PT Friday he posted on X, in Reuters’ translation via NBC News: “At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning.” Back in Warsaw he met Kapiński at the presidential palace and then went with him to the tribunal, Euronews reports. One video shows the president “tussling with security and other judges to force his entry into the building,” the Guardian reports. Inside, according to video cited by Anadolu Agency, Korwin-Piotrowska told him, “We are judges of the Constitutional Tribunal,” and he replied, “You are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.” He stayed until shortly before 5 a.m. local time, Anadolu reports.

His chief of staff, Paweł Szefernaker, read out the president’s statement in front of the court early Saturday. Outlets translate it slightly differently: Reuters renders the key line as “Tonight, there was a breach of public order in the Republic of Poland and a forcible takeover of a constitutional body,” while Euronews gives “a breach of the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland and a forcible takeover of a constitutional organ of the state.” Nawrocki called for “the forces of coercion sent there by the government to leave the Tribunal’s grounds,” Euronews reports, and convened urgent consultations with parliamentary parties “in order to stabilize the political situation and restore constitutional order,” according to Anadolu, which also reports that he said he had let Sochański into the building.

Żurek hit back on Saturday. “The president’s behaviour alarmed me enormously,” he said, according to Euronews, adding that he hoped prosecutors would act and arguing that footage showed the president “forcing his way in and attacking the judges.” He said talks had taken place, including with Sochański, but produced no compromise, and that the tribunal should resume normal work on citizens’ pending cases, Euronews reports.

The crisis also reached Poland’s diplomatic corps. Paweł Soloch, ambassador to Romania and a former senior aide to President Andrzej Duda, resigned on Saturday, citing an “attempted unlawful takeover of the Constitutional Tribunal,” and the ambassador to China, Jakub Kumoch, resigned late Friday, Anadolu Agency reports. U.S. Ambassador Tom Rose wrote on X that “the events unfolding tonight … are very serious” and that “the last thing Poland needs is a confrontation that spirals into something far worse,” according to the Guardian, which adds that Nigel Farage, Liz Truss and Geert Wilders condemned the move.

Legal experts disagree about the suspension itself. Marcin Matczak, a law professor and outspoken critic of the PiS-era judicial overhaul, wrote that he considers Święczkowski the court’s worst president but that the legal basis for suspending him looks “nonexistent for a million reasons,” Notes from Poland reports; he argued that the justice minister oversees the common courts, not the tribunal. “Today’s action at the Constitutional Court, in my opinion, buries this body and the issue of the rule of law for two decades,” Matczak wrote, according to the BBC.

The fight dates to 2015, when PiS took power. The European Court of Human Rights and the EU’s Court of Justice later ruled that the PiS majority had elected three judges improperly to seats the previous parliament had validly filled, the BBC reports. Those courts found the tribunal no longer an “independent and impartial tribunal,” and Tusk’s government has cited the rulings to stop publishing the court’s judgments, according to the BBC. This year parliament chose eight new judges and Nawrocki refused to swear in five, citing their selection or qualifications, Notes from Poland reports; Reuters, via NBC News, puts it as three of six. On Oct. 13 the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission said that a judge’s oath taken in a substitute form, without the president present, can stand, and that the president should accept such oaths promptly, according to a summary from Poland’s Justice Ministry.

What comes next remains open. Nawrocki’s consultations with parliamentary parties had not produced any announced result by about 7 a.m. PT Saturday, in any outlet this desk reviewed, and a Euronews clip posted at 4:26 a.m. PT showed protesters still outside the court. Parliamentary elections fall due next year, and the Guardian reports that polls give the populist right a chance to return to power.