Key facts
- Eight judges backed by Tusk's coalition planned to meet to approve the tribunal's budget and weigh disciplinary proceedings against Święczkowski and Sochański.
- The eight judges need a quorum of 10 of the court's 15 judges, requiring at least two justices chosen under the previous PiS government.
- Nawrocki abandoned a trip to Senegal and turned his flight around over Spain on October 31, 2026, reaching the tribunal at 1 a.m. the next day.
- Święczkowski says he remains tribunal president and rejects the authority of the judges seeking control of the court.
- Tusk wrote on November 2, 2026, that Nawrocki should recognize judges lawfully elected by parliament and allow them to take up their duties.
- PiS deputy leader Przemysław Czarnek called on Tusk to resign so the president could call a new election.
Poland's dispute over control of the Constitutional Tribunal has become the organizing line of the country's politics ahead of a parliamentary election, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government and President Karol Nawrocki on opposite sides of the court's cream-colored headquarters in central Warsaw, surrounded by police and protesters.
The immediate flashpoint came on October 31, 2026, when judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, citing her status as the judge with the longest service, suspended tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański. Nawrocki abandoned an official trip to Senegal and turned his flight around over Spain that day, arriving at the tribunal at 1 a.m. the following day. Footage showed him forcing his way in past Korwin-Piotrowska. The president's camp says it was Korwin-Piotrowska and other judges who made unlawful physical contact with the president.
Eight judges backed by Tusk's ruling parliamentary coalition planned to meet to approve the tribunal's budget and consider disciplinary proceedings against Święczkowski and Sochański. They need a quorum of 10 of the court's 15 judges, meaning at least two justices chosen under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government, which ruled from 2015 to 2023, would have to join them. Święczkowski, who says he remains president and rejects the authority of the judges seeking control, has vowed to come to the tribunal's gates daily to demand to be let in.
Tusk wrote on November 2, 2026, that resolving the conflict was simple and possible without constitutional changes, saying Nawrocki should recognize judges lawfully elected by parliament, as the constitution requires, and allow them to take up their duties. He accused Nawrocki of choosing a confrontation that could cost Poland dearly and said the democratic state would not yield to violence, regardless of how powerful the external forces supporting PiS and the far right might be. PiS deputy leader Przemysław Czarnek responded by calling on Tusk to resign so the president could call a new election.
The dispute dates back to October 2015, when the Civic Platform-led parliamentary majority elected five Constitutional Tribunal judges, three to fill existing vacancies and two for seats opening after an election set for December. The tribunal later ruled the two extra judges were improperly chosen, but the incoming PiS majority declared all five selections void, elected five replacements and had them sworn in by PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda. In December 2025, the EU's top court ruled that the tribunal did not meet the standards of an independent and impartial court because of irregularities in appointments made a decade earlier. Tusk returned to power in 2023 promising to restore the rule of law, but his efforts were thwarted by Duda and by Nawrocki, who won the presidency in 2025 with PiS's backing.
The crisis is pulling right-wing parties together. A crowd outside the tribunal protesting Tusk's government included PiS co-founder Jarosław Kaczyński alongside Grzegorz Braun, an extreme-right Polexit campaigner whom Kaczyński had previously ruled out governing with; the two took a selfie. Other right-wing leaders at the rally included former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and libertarian Sławomir Mentzen. Anna Bryłka, vice president of Mentzen's Confederation party, told POLITICO that ending Tusk's government was the fundamental common goal despite program differences. Kaczyński raised the possibility of a Polexit the previous week.
Tusk's Civic Coalition leads POLITICO's Poll of Polls, but its smaller partners might not make it into the next parliament, opening the way for PiS and other right-wing parties if their leaders can work together. Borys Budka, a Civic Coalition member of the European Parliament and a former justice minister, told POLITICO that the elections would be crucial for Polish democracy and that a right-wing coalition would eliminate independent institutions and take Poland out of the European Union. Ben Stanley, a political scientist at Warsaw's SWPS University, said the crisis gives both sides an opportunity to rally support, and that the tussle may only temporarily unite right-wing parties, which he described as more ideologically heterogeneous than the current governing coalition.