WARSAW — Poland's political crisis deepened on Tuesday as nationalist President Karol Nawrocki launched a bitter attack on pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk amid a furor over the politicization of judges at the country's Constitutional Tribunal.
In increasingly heated exchanges, Nawrocki accused Tusk of using the court dispute for an illegal power grab, while Tusk defended his actions as vital to preserving the rule of law in the EU's sixth-largest economy.
The long-running but highly charged judicial dispute dates back more than a decade and centers on the political appointment of judges at the top court by the previous administration of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party that was in power until 2023.
Tusk's government and the European Commission have insisted the court must be overhauled to conform with EU norms on impartiality, and on Friday suspended the court's president and his deputy.
On Tuesday, eight judges elected by the current ruling majority led by Tusk convened the court and declared they had sufficient numbers to resume its long-stalled work.
Hitting back, Nawrocki used the televised opening of a National Security Council meeting, attended by Tusk and other political leaders, to attack the prime minister. Tusk was not given a chance to respond while the cameras were on.
"Full responsibility for every police officer outside the tribunal, for all the illegal actions, including suspending judges and issuing unlawful orders, lies with one man who is present in this room — Prime Minister Donald Tusk," Nawrocki said, referring to Friday's confrontations in front of the tribunal.
"I expect [the prime minister] to rein in his government's ambitions and put an end to the illegal actions of his representatives inside the Constitutional Tribunal," Nawrocki added.
Earlier, Tusk had accused Nawrocki of escalating the conflict and called on him to end his opposition to the judges elected by parliament.
"The president has a chance, and I hope he takes it, to stop attacking lawfully elected tribunal judges and allow them to work," Tusk said before a Cabinet meeting.
Tusk also accused Moscow of exploiting Poland's political turmoil and urged politicians not to become "useful idiots" as the squabble over the court's fate intensifies.
As the National Security Council meeting ended, Tusk reiterated his main points on the tribunal but adopted a more conciliatory tone, offering Nawrocki a one-on-one meeting to "think about how to reduce tension."
But he also said he was pleased that the "situation was stabilizing," alluding to the fait accompli of the tribunal having resumed work.
The feud over the tribunal is hardening Poland's political divisions ahead of the 2027 parliamentary election, bringing a previously divided array of factions on the nationalist right into closer alignment against Tusk. For the prime minister, the crisis also serves as an opportunity to consolidate the voter base ahead of the election.
The eight judges elected by the current parliamentary majority held a general assembly Tuesday afternoon under Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the judge who assumed control of the court Friday. Nawrocki and the right-wing camp do not recognize her authority.
The president also keeps refusing to swear in five of the eight judges. Instead, they took their oaths in the parliament in a ceremony that Nawrocki contends was null and void.
The eight voted to recognize themselves as a quorum, arguing that only 12 of the court's 15 judges were eligible to participate after Korwin-Piotrowska temporarily suspended PiS-linked Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy Bartłomiej Sochański. A third PiS-era appointee, Jarosław Wyrembak, occupied an improperly filled seat.
That reduced the required two-thirds quorum from 10 to eight, although Święczkowski and his political allies rejected his suspension and the quorum calculation.
The judges unanimously approved the tribunal's draft budget for 2027 and drew names for disciplinary panels to consider proceedings against Święczkowski and Sochański.
