Stand-Off Over Poland's Top Court: Two Senior Justices Suspended, Police Deployed in Warsaw

A political stand-off over control of Poland's top court, the Constitutional Tribunal, has broken out after the government suspended its two senior justices and moved to bring criminal charges against them.

Polish Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said he had requested stripping the court's President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański of their immunity from prosecution in order to bring criminal charges against them.

Right-wing politicians from the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party gathered outside the court premises in Warsaw to protest against the move. Riot police were deployed to prevent any demonstrators from entering the court building.

In a social media post, the Constitutional Tribunal wrote that the two men were still the legally appointed senior justices of the court, adding: 'All persons participating in these actions are committing the crime of a coup d'etat.'

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government was acting to restore the rule of law. In a social media post, he wrote: 'Restoring the rule of law is our duty. After years of Law and Justice's lawlessness, this is a difficult, sometimes painful process that requires decisive action. There is no other way.'

President Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by PiS, ordered his plane turned back to Warsaw while on his way to Senegal to attend the Summer Youth Olympic Games.

The Constitutional Tribunal was the spark that triggered Poland's long-running rule-of-law dispute. After the PiS-led government took office in 2015, the PiS majority in parliament moved quickly to appoint judges to the court to gain a majority there, because the court has the power to decide on the legality of legislation.

Leading European courts — the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union — subsequently ruled that the PiS majority had elected three of the judges improperly, because they were duplicating positions validly filled by the previous parliament. The European courts ruled that Poland's tribunal was no longer an 'independent and impartial tribunal', and Tusk's government has used those rulings as a basis to stop publishing the tribunal's rulings.

Taking office in 2023, Tusk vowed to depoliticise the judiciary but has failed to undo the PiS-era changes, partly because Nawrocki and his PiS-backed predecessor Andrzej Duda used their presidential vetoes to block his attempts.

Nawrocki has also refused to swear in five Constitutional Tribunal judges elected by parliament since March, on the grounds of alleged flaws in their selection procedure. One of those judges, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, has now been placed in temporary charge of the court.

Earlier this month, the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters, the Venice Commission, said Nawrocki should swear in the judges to allow them to sit on the court's bench.

Żurek said Święczkowski and his vice-president should face criminal charges for not allowing the judges to adjudicate.

The move has also drawn criticism. Lawyer Marcin Matczak, a critic of the PiS-era judicial reform who has said he considers Święczkowski to be the court's worst president, said his suspension had no legal basis. Writing on social media, he said today's action 'buries this body and the issue of the rule of law for two decades', and that images of armed police and interpretations under which the minister of justice can remove the tribunal's president by decree would have a powerful anti-rule-of-law backlash for years to come.