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Polish President Karol Nawrocki accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk on October 31 of trying to seize the country’s Constitutional Court by force, AnewZ reported. The statement followed the suspension of the court president’s powers.
The court said late on Friday that its longest-serving judge, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, had suspended the powers of court president Bogdan Swieczkowski and taken over the institution’s leadership. Swieczkowski was appointed under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government and served as a deputy justice minister in that administration.
In a statement read by an aide outside the court on the morning of October 31, Nawrocki called the move “the forcible takeover of a constitutional institution.” He turned his plane around mid-flight and returned to Warsaw while travelling to Senegal on a state visit.
Nawrocki went directly to the court. Riot police were deployed as several hundred protesters called for Swieczkowski to be reinstated. The president was accompanied by Zbigniew Kapiński, the first president of the Supreme Court, and called for urgent political consultations.
Tusk wrote on the social media platform X that his government was working to restore the rule of law. The European Union had accused his PiS predecessors of weakening rule-of-law principles. The prime minister said the process was difficult and sometimes painful, but required decisive action.
“Restoring the rule of law is our duty. After the years of lawlessness under PiS, this is a difficult, sometimes painful process that requires decisive steps. There is no other way.”
The suspension of the court president’s powers marks a further escalation in a long-running dispute over Poland’s judicial system. Since Tusk’s coalition came to power in 2023, it has pledged to restore the rule of law and reform the Constitutional Court. Nawrocki, a PiS ally elected president in 2025, has taken steps that have obstructed those efforts.
Earlier this year, Nawrocki did not allow three of the six judges nominated by parliament to take their oaths. Swieczkowski also refused to admit judges elected by the current parliamentary majority to their posts.
Last month, parliament appointed Maciej Berek, an ally of Tusk, to the Constitutional Court. Critics said the move undermined the government’s stated aim of restoring checks and balances.
