President Karol Nawrocki abandoned his Senegal trip after police sealed off Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal and a disputed judge announced the suspension of its sitting president.
Poland’s constitutional court erupted Friday after police secured its Warsaw building and a group of judges announced the suspension of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski.
President Karol Nawrocki was en route to Senegal when he turned the presidential plane around. “At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning,” Nawrocki said.
After returning to Warsaw, Nawrocki pushed through the police cordon and entered the tribunal building, The Guardian reported. He said the court had been seized by force.
Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska announced the suspension of Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański. Police said they secured the premises as protesters gathered. The Tribunal called the move a “coup d’état” and said Korwin-Piotrowska was not a legitimate tribunal judge, Euronews reported.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk says he is restoring the rule of law after years in which the European Union accused the PiS government of politicizing the court. Tusk said the process requires “decisive action,” according to Reuters.
But the suspension itself rests on ground so contested that even a prominent PiS critic told the Guardian its legal basis was nonexistent. The court has been paralyzed by competing appointments from the Tusk government and the national-conservative PiS opposition.
This is not an administrative dispute. Police stood at the doors of Poland’s top constitutional court while the president abandoned a foreign trip to get inside. The court’s legitimacy is contested. So is the government’s use of force to settle it.