Police cordoned off Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw on Friday evening after a judge elected by the current parliament suspended the court’s president and his deputy for a month. The tribunal’s own social media accounts called the move a coup d’état.
President Karol Nawrocki cut short a flight to Senegal and returned to Warsaw. Poland’s ambassador to China, Jakub Kumoch, resigned the same evening, citing “events in the country.”
Police appeared outside the court at around 17:00 CET. Soon afterwards, a notice on the tribunal’s website said Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska had ordered a one-month suspension of President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański. She cited the 2016 law governing the tribunal and her status as the judge with the longest service.
Warsaw police said they acted on her report of possible threats to judges and staff. They also cited a letter from the prosecutor general asking for special attention to the court’s security. Officers say they are limited to securing the area and have not entered the building. They say people threw dangerous objects at police and breached the perimeter fence, and that three people were detained.
Święczkowski arrived at about 20:00 and was not admitted. He said he would meet the president and that “legal judges” would return on Saturday to demand entry.
The tribunal’s X account said its website had been “illegally seized” and that Korwin-Piotrowska could not act as interim head because the president had not sworn her in.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that restoring the rule of law after years of lawlessness under Law and Justice (PiS) is “difficult, sometimes painful” and that “there is no alternative.” Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek, who is also prosecutor general, said he has asked for the immunity of both suspended officials to be lifted.
PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński called the operation a coup, and former president Andrzej Duda criticised the government. Marcin Przydacz, head of the president’s international policy office, said Kumoch’s resignation followed “a forceful attack” on the tribunal.
The tribunal has been close to paralysed for months. Nawrocki declined to swear in three of the six judges the Sejm elected, according to Reuters. Święczkowski declined to let the judges elected by the current majority take up their duties. Korwin-Piotrowska was among those elected on 13 March 2026. They took their oath before Sejm Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty instead of the president.
The government says the court is blocked by PiS-era appointees. The tribunal’s leadership says the new judges were never validly seated. Tensions rose in mid-October. Judge Maciej Berek alleged Święczkowski had struck him during an incident in the building on 14 October. On 16 October prosecutors came to the court with police and took documents and CCTV footage. The tribunal’s leadership called that unlawful but handed them over.
Opponents of the move point out that it came hours after the president’s plane left Warsaw (departure 14:45 CET). The sources reviewed contain no government response on the timing.
Public opinion is split. A recent IBRiS poll for Rzeczpospolita found 32% saying Nawrocki is right in the dispute and 27.8% saying Tusk is.
This is a developing story. More to follow.