Poland's Constitutional Tribunal had two rival leaderships on Saturday morning. On Friday a judge elected by the governing majority suspended the court's president, police sealed off the compound in Warsaw, and President Karol Nawrocki cut short a trip to Senegal. Overnight he entered the building and told that judge and two colleagues they were not judges of the tribunal.
The tribunal decides whether laws comply with the constitution, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government has not recognised it since taking office in December 2023. Who controls the court decides whether it can work at all. Both sides say the law is on their side. This recap sets out what is established, what is claimed and what is open, as of about 06:00 Warsaw time on Saturday.
2015: Then-President Andrzej Duda declines to swear in judges elected by the outgoing parliament. The Law and Justice (PiS) majority then installs its own, and the court becomes the centre of a rule-of-law dispute with Brussels.
December 2023: Tusk's government takes office, refuses to recognise the tribunal because of PiS-era appointments, and ignores its rulings.
2026: Parliament elects eight new judges. Nawrocki, who is allied with PiS, swears in three. The others take their oaths in parliament instead. Tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski, a former PiS-government official, refuses to seat the four who did so in April, saying the oath must be taken before the president.
6 May: The European Court of Human Rights orders the tribunal to accept those four judges. Święczkowski, the tribunal's president, says Strasbourg has no such authority. The tribunal itself later rules that the president is not obliged to swear judges in.
24 September: Prosecutors charge two senior tribunal officials over blocking the judges' entry. Święczkowski has immunity.
13 October: The Council of Europe's Venice Commission publishes an opinion (adopted 9–10 October) saying the president should swear in elected judges "without delay" and cannot review their election. It adds that judges are justified in taking the oath without him if he refuses. The president's spokesman says such opinions are advisory, not binding.
14 October: Maciej Berek, a former minister in Tusk's cabinet, takes the oath in parliament, the fifth judge to do so. Nawrocki had said he doubted Berek's qualifications and objected to a former minister joining the court.
All times Warsaw (CET).
Afternoon: Nawrocki leaves Warsaw for a visit to Senegal.
About 18:00: A notice on the tribunal's website says Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska has ordered a one-month break in duties for President Święczkowski and Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański. She cites her status as the longest-serving judge. The tribunal's X account says its website was taken over unlawfully, that she is not a judge of the tribunal, and that those involved are committing a coup d'état.
Same time: Warsaw police announce statutory activities on the court's grounds. They say they acted on Korwin-Piotrowska's report of threats to judges and staff and on a prosecutor-general letter asking for attention to security. Police say officers stayed outside the building, that objects were thrown at them, and that three people who climbed the fence were detained on suspicion of trespass. Tribunal spokeswoman Weronika Ścibór says State Protection Service (SOP) officers came in through the gate linking the court to the prime minister's chancellery, told two guards to leave and brought in seven parliament-elected judges. Korwin-Piotrowska says seven judges are inside and no police.
About 18:00, in the air: Journalists aboard are told the plane is turning back. Nawrocki writes on X: "At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland."
20:17: Święczkowski arrives and is not admitted. He says Korwin-Piotrowska is usurping the leadership. Protesters cut a chain on a gate; Święczkowski, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and former minister Piotr Gliński step onto the grounds and police stop them. Święczkowski tells the crowd they will not fight the police and says he will return with the president. Crowd estimates vary, from dozens (CNN) to crowds (RMF); there is no official count.
Evening: Tusk writes on X that restoring the rule of law after years of PiS lawlessness is painful and "there is no other way." Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek says he has asked for the immunity of Święczkowski and Sochański to be lifted. Supreme Court First President Zbigniew Kapiński calls the action unlawful and a coup. Ambassadors Jakub Kumoch (China) and Paweł Soloch (Romania) announce resignations over events at the court. US Ambassador Tom Rose calls the confrontation unprecedented and warns that the crowd is making an already dangerous situation more explosive.
21:43 and after: Nawrocki lands, goes to the Presidential Palace at about 22:00 and meets Kapiński and Święczkowski. The meeting ends after midnight.
Just before 01:00 Saturday: Nawrocki and Kapiński enter the tribunal. Korwin-Piotrowska had said the court could receive the president if he came alone. Video shows him pushing past people in the doorway, among them Korwin-Piotrowska and judges Krystian Markiewicz and Berek. He tells them: "You are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal." His spokesman says people in the doorway tried to block him. Minister Marcin Przydacz says two judges tried to jostle him. Berek says the president physically attacked the judges. RMF notes the accounts conflict.
After 02:00: The president's spokesman posts a photo from inside: Nawrocki, Kapiński, chief of staff Zbigniew Bogucki, security-bureau head Bartosz Grodecki and Sochański, the vice-president Korwin-Piotrowska says is suspended.
About 05:00: Nawrocki leaves. He says constitutional order was violated and a constitutional organ seized by force, calls for legal order to be restored and announces urgent consultations with parliamentary forces.
Tusk says restoring the rule of law is a duty and there is no alternative. Korwin-Piotrowska says her order rests on her seniority and on what she calls a state of higher constitutional necessity. She blames Święczkowski and Sochański for paralysing the court, including the failure to adopt its 2027 budget; the government left the tribunal out of its draft budget. Berek says the president chose physical confrontation. Andrzej Halicki, an MEP from Tusk's Civic Coalition, says Kaczyński wants power regardless of cost.
The 2016 law on tribunal judges requires the oath to be taken in the presence of the president, and its general assembly is made up of judges who took it before him (as quoted in the Venice Commission's compilation). Nawrocki's office and the tribunal's leadership say Korwin-Piotrowska never did, so she cannot lead the court. Nawrocki and Kapiński call the operation a seizure by force. Kaczyński called it a coup. Nawrocki's chief of staff Bogucki told the judges they had no legal basis to be in the building.
Lawyer Marcin Matczak, a long-time critic of the PiS-era court, says the suspension has no legal basis: a deputy can stand in only when the president cannot act, and that inability was created by her own order. He also says the general assembly needs ten judges for a quorum while the court has seven or eight. TVN24 reports that lawyers assess her legal grounds differently.
Each side's conduct has a precedent on the other side. The tribunal ruled in 2015 (case K 34/15) that the oath is the president's statutory duty. Duda's refusal in 2015 started the crisis, and the tribunal's May 2026 ruling, which favours Nawrocki, comes from a court the government does not recognise. The government, for its part, put a former minister on the court despite its own pledge to keep politicians off it, and opposition came from NGOs and from some coalition MPs (Notes from Poland).