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In Poland, there is an intensification of the constitutional crisis that has lasted since 2015 and the confrontation between the pro-European government of Donald Tusk and President Karol Nawrocki, representing the nationalist right-wing forces. The subject of the conflict is an attempt to replace the leadership of the Constitutional Tribunal, which, as the government claims, has been sabotaging the adoption of necessary decisions for many years.
Despite statements from the president's supporters who were invited to special consultations and, on the other hand, an address to the nation by the prime minister, there are no signs that the crisis that erupted on Friday after an attempt to replace the chairman and judges of the tribunal is nearing resolution.
On Saturday evening, Tusk made an address on national television. He said that the question of the functioning of the constitutional body rests on the opposition of the right-wing conservative opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) and President Nawrocki, who is close to it.
“No one had any doubt that the tribunal as imposed by the PiS party was not a real court,” Tusk said. “This is exactly how he was assessed by international organizations, Polish legal authorities and public opinion. We proposed to all political forces and both presidents [Navrotsky and his predecessor Duda – ed.] resolutions and laws that would allow us to jointly restore the rule of law.”
According to Tusk, the ruling coalition waited to elect new judges until the expiration of the terms of office of their predecessors, appointed when PiS was in power. “The judges took the oath, but the president did not deign to take these oaths. The legally elected judges were blocked by the chairman of the [Constitutional Tribunal] Svenczkowski and were unable to begin work,” he added.
On Friday, President Nawrocki turned around the plane on which he had visited Senegal and returned to Warsaw, soon heading to the building of the Constitutional Tribunal, surrounded by special forces after the removal of its chairman Bogdan Święczkowski. Navrotsky said that the removal of the chairman is a forceful takeover of a state constitutional body.
The next morning, a statement was read outside the courthouse on behalf of the president, in which he noted that negotiations were necessary due to a “threat to internal security.” According to Polish media, representatives of nationalist, far-right and some parties of the ruling coalition were present at the presidential palace.
Prime Minister Tusk's Civic Coalition party did not take part in the negotiations. The Left party, also part of the ruling coalition, said it was not invited and would not have participated anyway because it views President Nawrocki as one of the parties in the bitter dispute over the Constitutional Court.
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All the while, PiS supporters gathered outside the courthouse on Saturday, continuing protests that have been going on for weeks.
“It is Donald Tusk who is destroying democracy... this is a tragedy,” protester Iwona Dudek, 62, who traveled with her husband from a border town in Germany, told AFP. According to her, the crisis led to one unexpected result: “Donald Tusk did the impossible. He united the entire right wing."
What happened
The protests in Warsaw began after the Constitutional Tribunal (Constitutional Court) judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska suspended its chairman, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy, Bartolomew Sochanski, on Friday, October 30. They became judges when the ruling coalition was made up of the conservative Law and Justice party and its associates.
Korvin-Piotrovskaya explained her decision by saying that the tribunal had not actually worked for the last few years. As the longest-serving judge on the tribunal, she assumed leadership of the court.
Tusk supported her decision. “Restoring the rule of law is our duty. After many years of lawlessness perpetrated by the Law and Justice party, this is a complex, sometimes painful process that requires decisive action. There is no other way,” Tusk said earlier on Saturday.
Photo by Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Reuters
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After this, protesters against the decision—and the police—began to gather outside the courthouse. Three people were detained for trying to break through the fence, another for insulting a police officer. On Saturday morning, police detained another person who was found with a knife and an air pistol.
Returning to Poland, Nawrocki first met at the presidential palace with Świeczkowski and the Chairman of the Supreme Court, Zbigniew Kapiński. Then Navrotsky, accompanied by Kapinsky, was able to overcome the cordon at the Constitutional Tribunal and get into the building.
“I call for the restoration of legal order and the withdrawal of law enforcement forces deployed by the government from the territory of the Constitutional Tribunal,” Nawrocki said.
According to his version, “that night the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland was violated and a constitutional state body was forcibly seized.”
The head of the office of the President of Poland, Pavel Schefernaker, called for Prime Minister Tusk to be held “politically and criminally accountable.”
On Saturday, Nawrocki convened consultations with the leaders of parliamentary forces. Representatives of the PiS party, with the support of which Nawrocki became president (he is not a member of the party), and the far-right Confederation came to the meeting.
The Civic Coalition and the New Left, which supports the current Tusk government, were skeptical about the idea of consultations. “The constitution needs to be respected, not consulted about it,” said Citizens Coalition MP Grzegorz Napieralski.
The other two parties participating in the ruling coalition (Polish Peasant Party and Poland 2050) agreed to participate in the consultations.
What is the essence of the conflict
image copyrightEPA
The confrontation between the pro-European government of Tusk, who has served as Prime Minister of the country since December 2023, and the conservative opposition, primarily Law and Justice, which supports President Nawrocki, has been going on for several years.
The Constitutional Tribunal of Poland has been operating since 1986. It consists of 15 judges: they are appointed by the Seimas on the proposal of deputies for a nine-year term. They then take the oath of office before the president of the country.
In 2015, when the ruling coalition led by the Civic Platform, which then included Tusk, lost the elections to the Sejm, but the new parliament had not yet begun its work, deputies elected five new judges of the Constitutional Tribunal - including to replace two judges whose term expired shortly after the start of work of deputies of the new convocation.
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President Andrzej Duda refused to swear in these five judges, and a constitutional crisis ensued. As a result, the new government adopted a number of amendments, and during the eight years that PiS was in power (from 2015 to 2023), the Constitutional Tribunal began to consist entirely of judges appointed by this party and their coalition supporters.
The European Court, the highest judicial body of the European Union, recognized that the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland, due to the events of 2015-2016, does not meet the requirements of an “independent and impartial” court.
After PiS lost the 2023 elections, the new Tusk government questioned the legitimacy of the appointment of three judges, and the Sejm declared amendments adopted under the previous government unconstitutional. They were unable to change the laws due to the opposition of the president - first Duda, and then Navrotsky.
A new round of crisis was led to by Nawrocki's refusal to swear in five of the eight new members of the Constitutional Tribunal, including Anna Korwin-Piotrowski and Maciej Berek, a former minister in the Tusk government and a close ally of the prime minister. Berek's appointment, however, was also criticized by supporters of the current head of government.
Since then, the work of the Constitutional Tribunal has been virtually paralyzed, noted the former head of this body, Andrzej Zoll, in an interview with TVN24.
“Now the head of the Constitutional Tribunal is a person elected as a result of an imperfect process,” Zoll and several other former chairmen of the Constitutional Tribunal said in a statement in support of Korwin-Piotrowska’s actions, as quoted by Gazeta Wyborzca.
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