Polish president declares constitutional order violated, calls emergency talks
Kyiv • UNN
Karol Nawrocki stated that the constitutional order had been violated following overnight clashes at Poland's Constitutional Tribunal. He called consultations with the parliamentary parties.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki convened emergency talks with parliamentary parties on Saturday, October 31, saying that Poland’s constitutional order had been violated following an overnight standoff at the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw. His office issued the statement, UNN reports.
Details
"This night, the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland was violated, and a constitutional state body was seized by force," Nawrocki said.
He called "for the restoration of the rule of law and for the government-deployed enforcement forces to leave the tribunal premises."
"Because of the threat to the internal security of the Republic of Poland, I am convening urgent consultations today with representatives of the parliamentary forces in order to stabilize the political situation and restore the constitutional order," the Polish president said.
What happened
On Friday evening, October 30, police clashed with protesters outside Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal after its presiding judge was removed from office, as The Guardian notes, amid the latest escalation of a decade-long dispute over the court’s legal status.
The clashes followed a controversial decision by a group of government-appointed judges to remove the disputed head of the court, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański, against the backdrop of disagreements over the legitimacy of the panel.
The move prompted a furious reaction from the right-wing opposition party Law and Justice (PiS), whose leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, condemned what he called an "attack" on the court.
The court has often ruled in favor of Polish law over EU law, while the European Union accused Poland’s highest court of being too close to the nationalist political force of the time.
The PiS-backed conservative President Karol Nawrocki, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, turned his plane around on his way back from a state visit to Senegal in order to return to Warsaw and intervene in the court situation on Friday evening.
Hundreds of protesters, including opposition lawmakers, gathered outside the building to express their support for the suspended judges. Police said they had detained three people after some protesters broke through the tribunal’s fence, while others threw objects at officers.
Shortly before 1 a.m. on Saturday, Nawrocki appeared outside the court and walked through the police cordon. One video showed the president arguing with security personnel and other judges in an attempt to enter the building by force. At 5 a.m., as announced by the Constitutional Tribunal judges, the president and the head of his office, Zbigniew Bogucki, left the Constitutional Tribunal building, PAP reports.
In a video published online, Nawrocki could be heard saying that the government-appointed individuals "are not judges of the constitutional court."
The latest confrontation, The Guardian notes, is likely to further polarize the country, creating the conditions for a dramatic showdown in next year’s parliamentary elections, as polls show that the populist right has a chance of returning to power.
The court has found itself at the center of a dispute dating back to 2015, when the outgoing centrist government and the right-wing forces coming to power rapidly took legally questionable steps, one after another, to fill the bench with their appointees, the publication writes. The dispute over the appointments paralyzed the court’s work, followed by further attempts to paralyze it during PiS’s eight years of illiberal rule, overshadowed by clashes with the EU over the rule of law, the publication notes.
Since returning to power in 2023, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has repeatedly promised to repeal the disputed reforms, seeking to mend relations with Brussels while refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the court in its current form.
However, his efforts have been obstructed by presidents linked to the opposition, who used their veto powers and expansive interpretations of their authority to block the reforms.
This year brought another unexpected twist: Nawrocki, who last year unexpectedly defeated Tusk’s party candidate in the presidential election, refused to swear in five judges elected by the current parliament, further complicating the legal situation.
Earlier this month, the Council of Europe’s consultative body on the rule of law, the Venice Commission, said that the president’s refusal should not prevent the judges from taking office.
On Friday evening, a group of judges elected by the current majority filed a motion to suspend Święczkowski, a former minister from the Law and Justice party, and to transfer procedural oversight of the court to him. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, one of the five judges not accepted by Nawrocki, said that she had assumed the senior position, citing her greatest experience working in the judiciary.
Experts’ views on the legality of removing the judge from office were sharply divided. Marcin Matczak, a prominent legal expert and outspoken critic of PiS, said that he "never thought he would one day defend" Święczkowski, but believed that the legal basis for removing him "does not exist."
Separately, Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said that he had asked for Święczkowski and Deputy Chairman Sochański to be stripped of their immunity so that they could be held accountable for obstructing the work of the court.
Despite the criticism, Tusk insisted that "restoring the rule of law is our duty." "After years of PiS lawlessness, this is a difficult process, sometimes painful, and it requires decisive action. There is no other way," he argued.
Earlier this month, he promised that "the court will begin its work in accordance with the constitution, whether people like it or not."
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Atlanta that "the constitutional tribunal was politicized under the previous government." "What is happening is intended to allow the majority of duly elected judges to function again," he said.
Opposition leaders and the court, in a social media account, accused the government of carrying out a judicial "coup." Several European far-right figures, including Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss, and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, also condemned the move.
U.S. Ambassador to Poland Tom Rose wrote in a post on X: "The events unfolding tonight… are very serious." "Both sides are offering sharply different versions of what happened and why," he said. "Whatever the facts establish, the thousands of people gathered outside the tribunal are making an already dangerous situation even more explosive. The last thing Poland needs is a confrontation that escalates into something much worse."