OMM Newsroom
A long-running dispute over judicial independence and control of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal escalated on Friday. President Karol Nawrocki cut short a foreign trip and returned to Warsaw after the head of the country’s top court was suspended from office.
At the centre of the standoff is the Constitutional Tribunal, one of the main arenas in a decade-long struggle between Poland’s pro-European government and conservative political forces that previously ruled the country, AnewZ reported.
Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the tribunal’s longest-serving judge, announced that she had suspended the powers of its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and taken over temporarily. Święczkowski, a former deputy justice minister, is known as an ally of the nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS).
The decision prompted political reaction. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the tribunal building in Warsaw, and riot police were deployed to prevent protesters from entering the premises and to maintain security.
President cuts short trip
President Nawrocki, who is backed by PiS, called off a planned visit to Senegal and ordered his plane to return to Poland.
“At such a moment, the president should be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning,” Nawrocki wrote on social media.
The standoff is being seen as one of the most serious constitutional disputes to emerge since Donald Tusk’s coalition returned to power in 2023.
Government seeks to lift immunity for prosecution
Earlier on Friday, Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said he had filed a request to lift the legal immunity of Święczkowski and tribunal Deputy President Bartłomiej Sochański, with a view to bringing criminal charges against them.
The government did not disclose details of the proposed charges. The move is part of efforts to reverse changes made to Poland’s judicial system under PiS governments.
Tusk defended the government’s position, saying decisive action was necessary to restore judicial independence after years of disputes.
“It is our duty to restore the rule of law. After years of lawlessness by Law and Justice, it is a difficult, sometimes painful process that requires decisive steps. There is no other way,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
The tribunal issued a statement asserting that Święczkowski and Sochański remained its lawful leaders and accusing the government of illegally interfering in its work.
“All those involved in these actions are committing the crime of a coup d’état,” the Constitutional Tribunal said.
Opposition politicians who addressed supporters gathered outside the building on Thursday also levelled the tribunal’s accusation.
The roots of the current standoff date back to 2015. After taking power that year, PiS sought to appoint judges to positions that the previous parliament had already filled lawfully. The party later secured a majority on the Constitutional Tribunal, turning it into one of the main arenas of a broader dispute over democratic standards and judicial independence in Poland.
The European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union have ruled that some judges were improperly appointed and concluded that the tribunal could no longer be considered an independent and impartial court. Those rulings underpin the Tusk government’s position that judicial reform is necessary.
The government has cited European court rulings in refusing to publish some of the tribunal’s decisions.
Although the Tusk government has pledged to restore judicial independence, it has struggled to reverse many changes made under PiS. One obstacle has been the role of the presidency: both Nawrocki and his predecessor, Andrzej Duda, have used presidential powers to block or delay key reforms.
Earlier this year, Nawrocki refused to administer the oath to several judges elected by parliament, citing alleged legal flaws in the selection process. Święczkowski, in turn, has prevented judges chosen by the current parliamentary majority from taking up their posts on the tribunal.
Last month, parliament appointed Maciej Berek, a political ally of Tusk, to the tribunal. Critics said the move contradicted the government’s stated aim of keeping the judicial system free from politicisation.
The dispute has also drawn criticism from some legal experts who strongly oppose PiS-era judicial reforms. Marcin Matczak, a law professor and critic of PiS’s judicial changes, said the latest suspension had no legal basis.
“In my view, what is happening today at the Constitutional Court will bury the institution and the rule-of-law issue for 20 years,” Matczak wrote on social media.
He warned that images of armed police surrounding the country’s highest constitutional court could damage Poland’s legal institutions for years.
The standoff comes ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for next year. The Tusk government faces criticism both from supporters who want reforms implemented more quickly and from opponents who accuse it of politicising state institutions.
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal remains at the centre of the political and constitutional struggle. There is little immediate prospect of a resolution, and both sides say they are defending democracy and the rule of law.
