On Friday night, judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska announced one-month suspensions of Constitutional Tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański, and said she was taking over its running. Riot police were deployed outside, and three people were arrested after trying to enter the court complex, according to Al Jazeera.
President Karol Nawrocki turned his plane back from Senegal and arrived at the building overnight, calling the events a “forcible takeover of a constitutional institution”. Prime Minister Donald Tusk replied in a televised address on Saturday that restoring the rule of law is “our duty”.
Two Camps Claim the Law
The dispute dates to the rule of Law and Justice (PiS) from 2015 to 2023. In December 2025, the EU’s top court ruled that the Tribunal did not meet independence requirements.
Parliament elected eight judges to the 15-member Tribunal in 2026, and Nawrocki, a PiS ally, swore in three but withheld the oath from five. The five took the oath without him, and Święczkowski refused to let them begin adjudicating.
The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body, has said that appointing new judges lies within the Sejm’s power. The European Commission also said parliament must have the right to appoint them, Politico reported on 1 November.
Nawrocki’s adviser Marcin Przydacz says the government has no legal basis for its conduct.
Restoring the Court Can Also Damage It
Tusk says the Tribunal, in the form imposed by PiS, was not a genuine court. He says the president and PiS blocked the government’s proposals to restore the rule of law. He ruled out compromise on certain issues in his Saturday address. That reasoning has supporters, but it carries risks.
Analyst Marcin Matczak warned that the scenes could set a precedent, with a future government citing them to justify sending police into the Tribunal.
A government trying to depoliticise a court can weaken its own case if reform starts to look like partisan replacement. The September election of Maciej Berek, a former minister in Tusk’s cabinet, to the Tribunal had already drawn objections from some coalition members. They said it contradicted promises to depoliticise the judiciary.
Talks Leave the Governing Camp Out
Nawrocki held talks with party leaders at the presidential palace on Saturday afternoon, but representatives of Tusk’s Civic Coalition, the Left and the Centre group did not take part.
PSL leader Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz repeated his call for a constitutional reset. Razem’s Adrian Zandberg proposed ending the terms of all current judges and electing a new bench by a constitutional majority. Former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki floated a technical government under Marek Jurek to organise elections in 2027.
Both camps claim to defend the same legal order. Supreme Court chief Zbigniew Kapiński has convened an extraordinary assembly of its judges for Tuesday to discuss threats to the constitutional order. A constitutional system relies on institutions recognising one another’s authority, and Poland currently has two camps doing neither.
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