Polish president enters Constitutional Tribunal amid dispute with government

President Karol Nawrocki entered the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw shortly after midnight on Saturday, escalating a dispute with Prime Minister Donald Tusk over the composition of the court. Video released overnight shows Nawrocki moving past a crowd gathered at the tribunal’s entrance, including Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, whose recent nomination as acting president of the court has been contested.

Judge Maciej Berek said the president confronted Korwin-Piotrowska physically, while presidential aide Rafał Leśkiewicz described the judges present as “usurpers” who had blocked Nawrawski’s access.

Inside the building, Nawrocki told Korwin-Piotrowska and other judges appointed by the Tusk-led parliamentary majority, “You are not judges [of the Tribunal].”

The incident follows a series of moves by the Tusk government to reverse judicial reforms implemented by the previous Law and Justice (PiS) administration. Earlier, Korwin-Piotrowska suspended the court’s president Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy Bartłomiej Sochański, asserting authority to manage the tribunal; Święczkowski rejected that claim.

In a statement issued around 5 a.m., Nawrocki accused the government of “forcibly seizing a constitutional institution,” called for police to leave the tribunal grounds and requested emergency consultations with parliamentary parties, citing a “threat to Poland’s internal security.” Police remain stationed outside the court, where PiS supporters have maintained a protest camp for several weeks.

The broader confrontation centers on Tusk’s efforts to replace judges appointed by the former PiS government with those selected by the current parliamentary majority, a process that Nawrocki has refused to recognize.