Choose’s suspension is a part of an extended dispute over politicisation of the Constitutional Tribunal below former authorities.
Revealed On 30 Oct 2026
Polish police have been deployed outdoors the nation’s high court docket after demonstrators gathered to protest the suspension of its head decide.
Police stated on Friday they entered the premises of the Constitutional Tribunal after incidents outdoors the court docket, together with objects being thrown at police.
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Protesters descended on the Warsaw court docket after it introduced on Friday that its head, Bogdan Swieczkowski, had been suspended.
His suspension is expounded to a long-running dispute that has successfully paralysed the court docket.
Over the previous six months, Swieczkowski used his energy as head of the court docket to dam judges elected by the present parliamentary majority from assuming their court docket duties.
Minister of Justice Waldemar Zurek instructed reporters on Friday that he had requested that Swieczkowski and his deputy’s immunity be lifted for failing to fulfil their duties by stopping judges from performing their work.
Swieczkowski was appointed to his place by Poland’s former nationalist Legislation and Justice occasion (PiS) authorities, which critics have accused of politicising the nation’s courts.
Restoring the rule of regulation is the federal government’s obligation, Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated on X following the information of Swieczkowski’s suspension.
“After years of lawlessness below PiS, this course of is troublesome, at occasions even painful, and requires decisive motion. There isn’t any different means,” stated Tusk, chief of the Civic Coalition occasion.
Information of Swieczkowski’s suspension introduced crowds of PiS supporters to the gates of the Constitutional Tribunal. Police stated they detained three individuals after some within the crowd launched “harmful projectiles”.
Additionally on Friday, PiS-allied Polish President Karol Nawrocki introduced he was turning his airplane round whereas on the way in which to a sporting occasion in Senegal, saying: “At a second like this, the President should be in Poland”.
Since his election in mid-2025, Nawrocki has refused to swear in three of six judges nominated by the Polish parliament.
Politicised judiciary
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has lengthy been a degree of great political rivalry, with critics in Poland and throughout the European Union accusing PiS, which led the nation from 2015 to 2023, of imposing political management over the court docket by electing judges pleasant to the occasion and its insurance policies.
When Poland’s pro-European authorities got here to energy, it promised to revive the independence of the judiciary. Nonetheless, two makes an attempt to take action have been vetoed by two PiS-aligned presidents – one in all them Nawrocki.
Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, one of many judges Nawrocki refused to swear in on the grounds of alleged flaws in her choice process, has now been positioned in command of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Politicians from PiS, presently Poland’s largest opposition drive, have criticised Swieczkowski’s suspension.
“This can be a blatant, legal assault on the constitutional order,” former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro wrote on X Friday.
