Polish court chief suspended as police deployed in Warsaw

WARSAW – Riot police were deployed outside Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal on Friday after the court’s president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, was suspended, and President Karol Nawrocki turned his plane around en route to Senegal, Reuters and The Associated Press reported. The situation is developing.

The dispute pits Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government against the opposition Law and Justice party (PiS), and it centres on who controls the country’s top constitutional court. Police said officers entered the tribunal’s premises after incidents outside that included “the throwing of dangerous objects at police,” Reuters reported. Al Jazeera, citing AP and Reuters, reported that police detained three people.

The tribunal said on its website that Swieczkowski had been suspended, according to Reuters. Al Jazeera reported that he was appointed under the previous PiS government and that over the past six months he had blocked judges elected by the current parliamentary majority from taking up their duties. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, whom Nawrocki refused to swear in, was placed in charge of the court, Al Jazeera reported.

Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Zurek told reporters he had asked for the immunity of Swieczkowski and his deputy to be lifted, Reuters and Al Jazeera reported. Neither man’s response to that request was included in the reports reviewed.

Nawrocki, who has refused to swear in three of the six judges nominated by parliament, according to Al Jazeera, wrote on X: “At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning.”

Tusk defended the move on X. “After years of lawlessness under PiS, this process is difficult, at times even painful, and requires decisive action. There is no other way,” he wrote.

The tribunal itself called the action a “coup d’etat” on its official X account and said Korwin-Piotrowska “is not a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal,” Euronews reported. PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said Tusk’s government was carrying out a coup on the tribunal, Reuters reported. Former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro called the move “a blatant, criminal attack on the constitutional order,” Al Jazeera reported. Euronews, citing an AFP journalist, reported that PiS supporters outside the court chanted “Tusk traitor.”

The standoff over judicial appointments has run since Tusk’s government took office after the 2023 election, with Brussels watching closely. It follows other turbulence in Warsaw this month, including the resignation of a minister from Tusk’s cabinet over mayor term limits.

The Canadian government had not commented in the reports reviewed. Poland is a fellow NATO member and a key neighbour of Ukraine.

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Via Reuters (RTE), Al Jazeera and Euronews.