⚡️🇵🇱 Poland’s pro-EU Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has ordered a raid on the offices of the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw, prompting President Karol Nawrocki to turn his plane around mid-flight.

The court is responsible for ensuring that parliamentary legislation complies with the Polish Constitution.

– Europa News.

✍️ Context:

Since 2016, the right has held a majority in the Constitutional Tribunal — currently 8 out of 15 judges.

A few weeks ago, one judge retired, and parliament — in violation of procedures and formal requirements — elected a former minister in the current government, and privately a close friend of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, as a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal.

The President refused to accept his oath and to recognize this election, citing unfulfilled procedures. The government therefore organized a fake and utterly pathetic swearing-in before the Marshal of the parliament from the left, and decided to ignore the President.

For a month now, conservatives and nationalists have been protesting in front of the Constitutional Tribunal, but it appears the government has decided to use force once again — and this time to finally force the President of the Constitutional Tribunal to submit to the government's power.

The President's Chancellery and the opposition believe that the government is striving to take over the Constitutional Tribunal in order to pass over a dozen government motions limiting the President's powers.

⚡🇵🇱 The government has announced that a liberal judge supporting the government has become the new President of the Constitutional Tribunal and has decided to suspend the current conservative President and his deputy from their duties.

This is so absurd.

🇵🇱⚡️ The President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, has interrupted his official visit to Senegal and has urgently returned to the country after learning of the police entering the Constitutional Court headquarters and the suspension of its president, Bogdan Święczkowski.

“At a time like this, the president must be in Poland. I am interrupting my trip to Senegal. I am returning,” Nawrocki announced on his X account, thus justifying his decision to prematurely end the diplomatic visit.

The police explained that they entered the Court’s facilities after incidents were recorded outside, including the throwing of dangerous objects at the officers. Subsequently, the institution itself officially confirmed Święczkowski’s suspension from his duties.

⚡️🇵🇱 Poland’s Supreme Court chief condemns police intervention at the Constitutional Tribunal, calling the suspension of its president and vice-president and restrictions on judicial access a serious threat to the rule of law and constitutional order.

First President of the Supreme Court Zbigniew Kapiński expresses strong opposition to the actions, warning that:

- Police deployment at the Tribunal’s headquarters and the reported blocking of the vice-president from entering the building undermine the independence of a constitutional institution.
- The order suspending Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański from their duties raises serious questions about its legal basis and compatibility with Poland’s constitutional system.
- Disputes over the functioning of state institutions cannot be used to paralyse those institutions or strip their office-holders of authority outside legally established procedures.
- Article 7 of the Constitution requires public authorities to act within the limits of the law, Article 10 guarantees the separation and balance of powers, and Article 173 protects the independence of courts and tribunals.
- No state authority can arbitrarily assume powers not granted by law, impose its own interpretation of the law on another constitutional body through coercive measures, or prevent its officials from performing their duties.

Kapiński warns that using police officers to restrict the activities of constitutional institutions would establish a dangerous precedent and undermine the foundations of democratic rule of law.