by Ben Whedon
Poland appears to be in a state of constitutional crisis on Friday after Prime Minister Donald Tusk sent police to install a loyalist to control the nation’s constitutional court, in defiance of President Karol Nawrocki and the judicial body.
The move centered on Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, one of several judges elected by the current Sejm majority earlier this year. She ordered a one-month suspension of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański and declared that she was assuming leadership as the longest-serving member of the bench.
Święczkowski, a former national prosecutor and PiS-era appointee who has led the court since late 2024, rejected the order outright and accused those involved of staging a coup d’état. The Tribunal’s official social-media account, still controlled by the existing leadership, issued a similar statement, asserting that Korwin-Piotrowska is not a legitimate judge of the court and that its website had been unlawfully seized.
Video footage showed police entering the Constitutional Tribunal on Friday evening. President Nawrocki was en route to Senegal, but has turned his plane around to address the situation.
“Restoring the rule of law is our duty. After years of PiS-led lawlessness, this is a difficult process, sometimes painful, and it requires decisive action. There is no other way,” Tusk posted on X.
The confrontation is the latest flashpoint in a years-long struggle over the Constitutional Tribunal. Under the previous Law and Justice government the court was packed with loyalists and became a central player in Poland’s clashes with the European Union over judicial independence.
Since taking office in 2023, Tusk’s coalition has refused to recognize the legitimacy of several of those judges and, earlier this year, filled vacant seats with its own nominees. President Nawrocki, a PiS ally elected in 2025, declined to administer the oath to five of the eight new judges; they instead swore the oath in parliament. Święczkowski has blocked them from taking up cases, effectively paralyzing much of the Tribunal’s work.
Nawrocki issued only a limited comment in response, saying “At such a moment, the President must be in Poland. I’m interrupting my flight to Senegal. I’m returning.”
Outside the Tribunal’s Warsaw headquarters, riot police deployed in force after warnings of threats to judges and staff.
Protesters, many of them PiS supporters, gathered in large numbers; some chanted “Tusk traitor,” held rosaries, or prayed. Officers reported that objects were thrown at them. At least three people were detained after climbing or cutting through the perimeter fence with power tools in an attempt to force entry.
Police said their presence was limited to the exterior and that they had not entered the building itself, though video and eyewitness accounts showed officers controlling the gates and blocking Święczkowski and his deputy from re-entering.
Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek, who also serves as prosecutor general, said he submitted requests to lift the immunity of Święczkowski and Sochański so that criminal charges could be brought against them for allegedly preventing lawfully elected judges from performing their duties.
Law and Justice Party Leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski opined that Poland was “becoming a police state.”
Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun, a far-right politician, likened Tusk’s actions to a coup in 1926 and called for Poland to leave the EU outright.
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News. Christina Botteri is the Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow her on X at @christinakb.
Photo “Donald Tusk” by European Parliament. CC BY 2.0.
