Poland on the brink of a constitutional crisis: Police surround the court, and the president cuts trip to Senegal short
Riot police were deployed at the Supreme Court's headquarters in Warsaw after a judge allied with the government suspended the court's leadership, forcing Chief Justice Karol Nawrocki to cancel his international schedule and return to the country.
Headquarters of the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland—Adrian Grycuk, via Wikimedia Commons.
The conflict of powers rocking Poland reached a critical point on Friday night. Riot police squads cordoned off the Constitutional Tribunal building on Szucha Avenue in Warsaw, following the publication of a controversial official statement announcing the suspension of the body's president of the court, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and the vice president, Bartlomiej Sochanski.
The move was initiated by Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who assumed an interim role based on her seniority after being sworn in before the Sejm (Parliament) rather than before the head of state.
She was supported by Waldemar Żurek, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General in Donald Tusk's government—who filed motions to lift the immunity of the suspended judges and requested police custody—the judge alleged threats to the security of the premises.
From the court's official account on X, judges aligned with the suspended leadership denounced an "illegal takeover" and accused the executive branch of carrying out a "coup d'état," arguing that Swieczkowski remains legitimately in office by refusing to recognize Korwin-Piotrowska's authority.
The president's return and the warning of a "police state"
The gravity of the events forced the president of the Republic, Karol Nawrocki, to make an emergency cancellation to his official flight to Senegal. "At a time like this, the president must be in Poland. I am interrupting my flight to Senegal. I am returning," the president announced via social media before scheduling emergency meetings with Supreme Court officials upon his arrival in Warsaw.
For his part, the leader of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, reacted harshly to the actions of the security forces under the executive branch. Kaczynski described the intervention as "an attack on the Constitutional Tribunal" and warned that the actions spearheaded by Prime Minister Donald Tusk threaten to turn the nation into a "police state" leaning toward authoritarianism.
"Once we have overthrown Tusk's government of thugs, we will have to rebuild the Constitutional Tribunal from scratch," the conservative leader asserted as the conflict escalated.
An institutional clash fueled from within Parliament
The struggle for control of the Constitutional Tribunal is the result years of tension between the conservative bloc and the pro-European coalition led by Tusk.
The most recent trigger occurred in March 2026, when the Sejm elected six justices to fill vacancies. While two of them were sworn in by President Nawrocki, the remaining four took their oaths only before the Chamber of Deputies, leading to institutional paralysis and a dual system of legitimacy that is now spilling out onto the streets.
Even among legal circles critical of the opposition, the intervention by police forces has raised serious doubts regarding the constitutionality of the methods employed by the Ministry of Justice.
While Tusk justifies the measures on the grounds of "restoring the rule of law," his opponents point out that the use of security forces to disrupt the judicial leadership violates the separation of powers at a time of high political volatility in the region.
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