Polish President Seen Physically Pushing Way Into Top Court Amid Pro-EU Tusk’s ‘Judicial Coup’

It is approaching 24 hours since Poland was dramatically plunged into a Constitutional crisis. Starting Friday night, Prime Minister Donald Tusk staged a forced takeover of one of the country’s top courts, prompting Polish President Karol Nawrocki to abrubtly turn back his plane which was ‌en route to Africa for a scheduled state visit.

“At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am ‌cutting short ⁠my flight to Senegal. I am returning,” he wrote on ⁠X. The globe’s attention then turned to Warsaw and site of the Constitutional ‌Tribunal, where police had surrounded it, and prevented the independent body’s leaders from entering its grounds.

Protesters also soon descended, after it was revealed that the court’s longest-serving judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska had suspended Bogdan Swieczkowski, the tribunal’s president. The country’s main anti-Tusk opposition decried the blatant judicial power-grab.

President Nawrocki, an ally of the previous nationalist and Right-wing government is now in a desperate battle against Tusk’s pro-EU government for ultimate control of the judiciary.

Tusk’s ruling coalition has been trying for weeks to remove judges appointed under the previous PiS government, and now the trigger has been pulled in the most obvious of ways – with the clash literally spilling into the streets amid a stand off with police. 

After disembarking his plane upon his abrupt return to Warsaw Friday night, President Nawrocki physically attempted to gain entry amid unpredented displays of scuffles breaking out at the top court:

Outside the court the Associated Press observed clashes with police as the crowds grew and security blocked all entrances, even to top court officials:

Hundreds of anti-government protesters rallied overnight around a top court in Poland to denounce the suspension of the tribunal’s president, for which they blame the country’s pro-European government. Police said they detained three protesters after some threw objects at the officers and tried to break through the security fence around the court.

The primary responsibility of the tribunal is conducting judicial review to verify that Polish statutes adhere to constitutional standards.

The Friday night chaos started when it was the Polish official agency PAP which was the first to report that court chief Bogdan Święczkowski and his number two, Bartlomiej Sochanski, were suspended for a month by order of Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska.

Overnight scenes of a group cutting “the chains of Tusk’s captivity”…

“Today, I issued an order immediately suspending the duties of Mr. Bogdan Święczkowski, acting president of the Constitutional Tribunal. I issued the same order with respect to Judge Bartłomiej Sochański, acting vice president of the Constitutional Tribunal,” she announced, with changes quickly reflected in the tribunal’s website.

By early Saturday morning hours, President Nawrocki announced outside the court (via an aide), “Tonight, there ‌was a ​breach of public order in the Republic of Poland ⁠and a forcible takeover of ⁠a constitutional body.”

Will there be convenent silence from EU leadership over such a blatant ‘rule of law’ breach in Warsaw?

Tusk has essentially admitted that this was precisely what he did: “Restoring the rule of law is our obligation,” Tusk wrote on X Friday evening. “After years of lawlessness under PiS this is a difficult process, sometimes painful and it requires decisive action. There is no other way.”

Politico confirms that the president had to literally try and force his way in…

Polish President Karol Nawrocki forced his way into the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw shortly after midnight on Saturday, in the latest escalation of the rule-of-law tussle between the PiS-allied president and Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

A video published overnight showed Nawrocki pushing through people gathered at the court’s entrance, including Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the judge whose disputed nomination as the court’s acting president triggered the crisis on Friday.

Another judge of the top court, Maciej Berek, accused the president of physically confronting Korwin-Piotrowska. Presidential aide Rafał Leśkiewicz claimed it was the judges, whom he called “usurpers,” who had obstructed and manhandled Nawrocki.

Each side continues accusing the other of coup-like activities and democratic backsliding, and eroding important checks and balances; however, it is Tusk who has openly admitted to a forced takeover of what’s supposed to be an independent legal body with power of Constutional and judicial review.

Politicians from PiS, the country’s single largest opposition force, have called out Święczkowski’s ‘unlawful’ suspension. “This is a blatant, criminal attack on the constitutional order,” former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro stated on X Friday evening. “That is why I call for resistance that will be loud, firm, solidary and fearless.”