Polish PM accuses opposition and President Nawrocki of undermining the rule of law amid the crisis over the Constitutional Tribunal

Clash over the tribunal

The crisis erupted on Friday at around 7:00 p.m. local time, when the website of the Constitutional Tribunal published an order removing the court's president, Bogdan Święckowski, and vice-president Bartłomiej Sochański from their duties; judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska took over the court's leadership. The tribunal's account on X, controlled by the former leadership, stated that the website had been unlawfully seized and called what was happening a 'coup'. After Korwin-Piotrowska warned of threats to judges and staff, police were deployed around the building. Anadolu reported this.

Mutual accusations

On Saturday evening, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in a televised address to the nation, said that 'the attack on the Constitutional Tribunal and its judges is another stage in the destruction of the rule of law in Poland' by the PiS party, President Karol Nawrocki and former president Andrzej Duda. According to him, lawfully elected members of the tribunal were attacked, and the police on the scene protected the court from the attackers. He stressed that calm cannot be restored 'by yielding to lawlessness and violence', and that a democratic state 'must be strong and capable of delivering justice'.

The president's and opposition's position

Nawrocki, who was flying to Senegal, turned his plane around over Spain and returned to Warsaw late on Friday night. After a meeting with First President of the Supreme Court Zbigniew Kapiński, he came to the tribunal shortly before one o'clock in the morning on Saturday, where, according to video footage, he told the judges whose status he contests: 'You are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal'. Early in the morning, the president declared that the constitutional order had been violated and that a 'violent seizure of a constitutional state organ' had taken place, calling the situation a threat to internal security, and convened emergency consultations with parliamentary groups. His version directly contradicts Tusk's: the prime minister asserts that the new judges were lawfully elected by parliament after the terms of those appointed under PiS rule (2015–2023) expired, but Nawrocki this year refused to officially accept part of their oaths, whereas the president and the opposition believe that these judges never lawfully took office at all.

Political consequences

The confrontation went beyond the court: Poland's ambassadors to China and Romania submitted their resignations. The opposition moved to a direct challenge to the government — former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that a constructive vote of no confidence would be tabled and proposed a former speaker of parliament to lead a technical government until elections. The conflict is rooted in a long-standing dispute over the Constitutional Tribunal and judicial appointments: PiS reshaped the court during its eight years in power, drawing criticism from European institutions regarding the independence of the judiciary.