Polish president Nawrocki pushes his way into top court amid rule-of-law tussle

WARSAW — Polish President Karol Nawrocki forced his way into the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw shortly after midnight on Saturday, in the latest escalation of the rule-of-law tussle between the PiS-allied president and Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

A video published overnight showed Nawrocki pushing through people gathered at the court’s entrance, including Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the judge whose disputed nomination as the court’s acting president triggered the crisis on Friday.

Another judge of the top court, Maciej Berek, accused the president of physically confronting Korwin-Piotrowska. Presidential aide Rafał Leśkiewicz claimed it was the judges, whom he called “usurpers,” who had obstructed and manhandled Nawrocki.

Inside, Nawrocki told Korwin-Piotrowska and other judges that were recently elected by Tusk’s parliamentary majority: “You are not judges [of the Tribunal].”

The confrontation marked a dramatic escalation in the struggle between Nawrocki and Tusk’s government over how to reverse judicial changes introduced under the former nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government.

Korwin-Piotrowska suspended the court’s president Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy Bartłomiej Sochański — both named by PiS and seen as loyalists — claiming authority to take over the court’s management. Święczkowski rejected the move.

In a statement issued around 5 a.m., Nawrocki accused the government of “forcibly seizing a constitutional institution”, demanded that police leave the court grounds and summoned emergency consultations with parliamentary parties for Saturday, citing a “threat to Poland’s internal security.”

Police remain deployed outside the tribunal, where PiS supporters had staged an anti-government protest camp for weeks.

The broader dispute stems from Tusk’s efforts to reverse controversial moves by former PiS governments to fill the court with judges aligned with the nationalist party. These efforts have met stiff resistance from PiS and Nawrocki, who refused to swear in some judges elected by the Tusk-led parliamentary majority.

The judges subsequently took oaths in parliament, in a ceremony Nawrocki considers null and void, while Święczkowski barred them from hearing cases.