First posted on Instagram
Poland's president cut short a trip to Senegal and flew back to Warsaw on Friday night as a fight over who leads the country's Constitutional Tribunal spilled onto the streets outside the court, with riot police deployed around the building and rival judges each claiming to be in charge.
Karol Nawrocki was en route to Senegal when the crisis broke. "At such a moment, the President must be in Poland. I'm interrupting my flight to Senegal. I'm returning," he said. He landed in Warsaw shortly before 10 p.m. local time and met Zbigniew Kapinski, the First President of the Supreme Court, at the Presidential Palace, where the suspended tribunal president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, also joined the meeting.
The confrontation began on Friday evening, October 30, when Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska issued orders suspending Swieczkowski and his deputy, Bartlomiej Sochanski, from their duties for one month. Korwin-Piotrowska, one of the judges elected by the Sejm, Poland's lower house, earlier this year, said she was taking over as acting head of the tribunal as its longest-serving judge, and that the move was needed to restore the tribunal's operations after its leadership blocked judges elected by the current parliamentary majority from taking up cases.
Police in anti-riot gear formed a cordon around the tribunal's Warsaw headquarters between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., saying they had acted on information from Korwin-Piotrowska about possible threats to judges and staff and a risk of public disorder. Police said they had not entered the building, though some reports and video showed officers controlling the gates. Three people were detained after trying to get onto the grounds, including by climbing or cutting through the perimeter fence, and police reported objects thrown at officers as protesters, many of them supporters of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, gathered outside. Some chanted against Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The tribunal's existing leadership rejected the suspensions outright. On its official X account, the tribunal said its website had been subjected to an illegal takeover, that Swieczkowski remained president and Sochanski remained vice-president, and that those taking part in the move were committing the crime of a coup d'etat. Nawrocki and his allies have challenged the suspension in the same terms, as an illegal attempt by Tusk's government to take control of the judiciary.
Tusk's government has defended its position as restoring the rule of law. "Restoring the rule of law is our duty. After years of lawlessness under PiS, this process is difficult, at times even painful, and requires decisive action. There is no other way," Tusk wrote on X. Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Zurek said prosecutors had requested the lifting of the immunity of Swieczkowski and Sochanski so criminal charges could be brought against them for allegedly preventing lawfully elected judges from performing their duties.
The dispute is the latest flashpoint in a long-running conflict over the tribunal, which rules on whether legislation complies with Poland's constitution. Under the previous PiS government, which ruled from 2015 to 2023, the court was filled with PiS-era appointees, and European courts later ruled it was no longer an independent and impartial tribunal. Since Tusk's coalition took office in 2023, it has refused to recognise the legitimacy of several of those judges. This year the Sejm elected new judges, but Nawrocki declined to swear in judges elected by the current parliamentary majority, who instead swore their oaths in parliament, while Swieczkowski declined to allow them to take up cases — a standoff that has effectively paralysed much of the tribunal's work.
In the early hours after Nawrocki's return, accounts diverged over what happened when he went to the tribunal building. The president's spokesman said Korwin-Piotrowska and Judge Krystian Markiewicz had tried to manhandle the president, violating his inviolability, while Judge Maciej Berek accused Nawrocki of physically attacking the two judges and posted video of the confrontation. The presidency was also reported as saying Nawrocki entered the building. Who lawfully leads the tribunal, and whether the suspensions are legally effective, remained unresolved on Saturday morning.