Polish President Says Constitutional Order Has Been Violated
Warsaw (ANTARA) — Polish President Karol Nawrocki held an emergency meeting with several parliamentary parties on Saturday after declaring that the country’s constitutional order had been violated following a confrontation at the Constitutional Tribunal building in Warsaw.
“Tonight, the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland has been violated, and a constitutionally established state institution has been forcibly taken over,” Nawrocki said.
He made the statement after spending several hours inside the courthouse at the centre of the dispute. Nawrocki cut short an official visit to Senegal and returned to Warsaw on Friday evening local time amid rising tensions over control of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Nawrocki warned that the confrontation threatened Poland’s internal security.
“In view of the threat to the internal security of the Republic of Poland, today I am holding urgent consultations with representatives of the political forces in parliament to stabilise the political situation and restore the constitutional order,” he said.
After arriving in Warsaw, Nawrocki met Zbigniew Kapinski, the First President of the Supreme Court, before heading to the Constitutional Tribunal building at around 1am local time.
Inside, he came face to face with Anna Korwin-Piotrowska and several other judges whose status has been rejected by Nawrocki and the Tribunal’s previous leadership.
“We are judges of the Constitutional Tribunal,” Korwin-Piotrowska told him.
“You are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal,” Nawrocki replied, according to video recorded inside the building.
The Polish president remained at the courthouse until shortly before 5am local time.
He then asked police to leave the courthouse area and said he had enabled Bartlomiej Sochanski, whom he recognises as the legitimate deputy head of the Constitutional Tribunal, to enter the building.
The confrontation marks an escalation in the dispute between Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government over the legitimacy and control of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal.
Tensions peaked on Friday after Korwin-Piotrowska announced the temporary suspension of Constitutional Tribunal President Bogdan Swieczkowski and Sochanski.
The Tribunal’s official account on social media platform X, controlled by the previous leadership, rejected the decision and said the institution’s website had been illegally taken over.
The account also accused those involved of carrying out a “coup”.
Police were deployed around the Constitutional Tribunal building but said they had not entered it.
Tusk defended efforts to reform state institutions established during the eight years of Law and Justice Party rule, saying that restoring the rule of law required “decisive action”.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Zurek criticised Nawrocki’s actions inside the Constitutional Tribunal and called for prosecutors to investigate the incident.