Poland's top court has two rival leaderships this morning
On Friday a judge elected by the current parliament ordered the Constitutional Tribunal's president and vice-president off the job for a month. They refuse to go. Donald Tusk calls it restoring the rule of law, the opposition calls it a coup, and President Nawrocki cut short a trip to Senegal.
Poland woke up on Saturday with two competing answers to a basic question: who runs its Constitutional Tribunal? At about 6pm Warsaw time on Friday, the court’s website announced that its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and vice-president, Bartłomiej Sochański, had been suspended from their duties for up to a month. Within half an hour the tribunal’s official X account said the opposite. The website, it said, had been unlawfully taken over, and both men were still in post.
A suspension, and the fight over who can order one
The orders were signed by Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, one of the judges elected by the current parliament in March, who has claimed the management of the court. She relied on Article 130 of the law on the ordinary courts, which allows a judge to be removed from duty pending a disciplinary ruling. Whether that article can reach the Constitutional Tribunal at all is the heart of the dispute.
The same evening, Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said he had filed five requests to lift judicial immunity, four concerning Święczkowski and one concerning Sochański. A request to lift immunity is not a finding of wrongdoing, and it does not remove anyone from office.
Police outside, a chain cut at the gate
Warsaw police were called to the building on Aleja Szucha after Korwin-Piotrowska reported threats to judges and staff. The force says its officers stayed outside. Protesters gathered, the perimeter fence was breached and three people were detained.
Later that night Święczkowski arrived to find the gate locked from the inside and had the chain cut. He walked up to the police line, showed his ID and said the judges he regards as lawfully elected would turn up for work on Saturday.
Both sides, in their own words
Donald Tusk framed it as clearing up after years of lawlessness under the previous government. His post on Friday:
Przywracanie rządów prawa jest naszym obowiązkiem. Po latach pisowskiego bezprawia to proces trudny, czasem bolesny i wymaga zdecydowanego działania. Innej drogi nie ma.
— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) October 30, 2026
The tribunal’s leadership, Jarosław Kaczyński and his PiS party call it a coup. President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the opposition, broke off a visit to Senegal and flew home, saying a president has to be in Poland at a moment like this. No court has yet ruled on which side has the law right.
How Poland got here
The quarrel dates back to 2015, when the incoming PiS majority voided judicial appointments made by the outgoing parliament. The court’s make-up has been contested ever since, and in December 2025 the EU Court of Justice sided with the European Commission against Poland on exactly that point.
This year parliament elected six judges in March. Nawrocki swore in two and refused the other four, who took their oath at an alternative ceremony in parliament instead. This month the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission said in its opinion on the Polish tribunal that the president should promptly accept the oaths of judges parliament has elected.
The next fixed point is Tuesday 3 November, when the tribunal’s judges have a general assembly scheduled, nominally to pass the court’s budget (assuming they can agree on who gets to call it). It has been a turbulent month in central and eastern Europe, after a student-led list won a majority in Serbia, but Poland’s fight is not between parties at the ballot box. It is between branches of the state itself.
Image: Adrian Grycuk / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 PL)
