Poland’s top court is in a standoff — here's what's happening

LVIV, Ukraine — Riot police stood outside Poland’s top constitutional court in Warsaw on Friday night, as unrest broke out in the nation's capital.Here is what you need to know about what is happening in Eastern Europe’s biggest rule-of-law fight right now.Some are calling it a "coup d'état," others a "peaceful protest," and still others, say it's just normal Polish politics playing itself out as the country figures out who exactly is running the place..Poland’s political system operates a little differently than Canada’s. Which is to say, it operates a lot differently. The prime minister runs the government day to day. The president is separately elected, can veto laws, and has to formally swear in judges before they can sit. Right now those two jobs are held by people from opposite political camps — and that is, largely, the root of the problem..The fight is about who really controls the court that decides whether laws match the constitution and are, therefore, lawful.Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s side says it is fixing years of damage done by the previous government. The other side, and the court’s own social media account, called Friday’s move a "coup.".Behind all of that are two political camps that do not agree on much. One side thinks the courts were broken under the last government and need fixing. The other side thinks the current government is breaking them now.Law and Justice, or PiS for short, is Poland’s big national-conservative party.Twin brothers Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński founded it in 2001. It ran the country from 2015 to 2023. It is socially conservative, traditionalist, and not keen on giving more power to the European Union. Jarosław Kaczyński is still its leader, but holds neither the position of President nor Prime Minister. While it was in power it put its own people on the constitutional court and other courts. Critics, including the European Union, said that broke the independence of the courts. .Then there's Donald Tusk, who is Poland's current prime minister. He leads the centrist, pro-European Civic Coalition. Tusk was prime minister before, from 2007 to 2014, then ran the European Council in Brussels from 2014 to 2019. He came back to Polish politics and beat PiS in the 2023 election.Tusk’s government, in office since late 2023, has been trying to undo the aforementioned changes that occurred under the PiS government..The President, meanwhile, is Karol Nawrocki. He is a historian and, until recently, ran the Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates crimes from the Nazi and communist eras. He won the 2025 presidential election as an independent candidate backed by PiS and took office in August. He has refused to swear in several judges the current parliament elected. Without that oath they cannot officially sit.On Friday he was already on a plane to Senegal for the Summer Youth Olympic Games. He ordered it turned around to deal with the political crisis occurring in Warsaw..Bogdan Święczkowski (as if there weren't enough names to keep track of) is the man who was just suspended. He used to be the country’s top prosecutor. He is also longtime ally of the previous PiS justice minister. The old government put him on the constitutional court in 2022. He became its president in December 2024. He has kept the new judges from sitting..Here is what happened on Friday night, in order.Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska announced a one-month suspension of Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański. She said she was now in charge. Święczkowski said she had no authority to do that.The court’s official X account said the website had been taken over illegally.It reads (in English): “An illegal takeover of the Constitutional Tribunal’s website has occurred. Bogdan Święczkowski remains president and Bartłomiej Sochański remains vice-president. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska is not a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal. All persons participating in these actions are committing the crime of a coup d’état.”.Korwin-Piotrowska is one of the judges the current parliament elected.President Nawrocki has refused to swear them in. Without that oath they cannot officially sit. They took their oaths in parliament instead.Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said he had asked for the immunities of Święczkowski and Sochański to be lifted. That would let prosecutors charge them for refusing to let the new judges work.Police showed up after reports of threats and after objects were thrown at officers. .Reports said supporters of Święczkowski cut through a fence with a power tool. He was stopped from entering the grounds. Some of the new judges got in through a side gate with state protection officers..As noted, President Nawrocki was on a plane to Senegal for the Summer Youth Olympic Games. He ordered it turned around. “At a moment like this, the president must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning,” he wrote.Prime Minister Tusk posted on X that restoring the rule of law was the government’s duty. “After years of PiS lawlessness, this is a difficult, sometimes painful process that requires decisive action. There is no other way.”.A PiS MP outside the court, Dariusz Matecki, called the protests peaceful. “We are not burning down shops. We are not setting cars on fire. We are not attacking police officers,” he wrote. In a separate post the same night he called the events a coup d’état.".PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński told supporters outside the court that Poland had become a police state. He said the path led to authoritarianism and then totalitarianism. He called on Nawrocki to defend the institution..The constitutional court has been at the centre of Poland’s rule-of-law fight since PiS took power in 2015. The party put judges on it who later ruled that Polish law could override European Union rules on key points. Europe’s top court has said the tribunal, as it was then made up, did not meet basic standards of independence.Tusk’s government has tried to reverse the changes. Nawrocki has blocked several of its judicial picks by refusing the formal oath. So now there are two competing claims about who is actually in charge of the same building..For a Canadian reader the mechanics are simple (even if the pronunciation of the names is not). Imagine a top court whose members were picked by one government. The next government refuses to recognise those members. The head of state then refuses to formally accept the new members the new government wants to put on the court. And then one of those new members issues an order suspending the old leadership while police hold the perimeter and the president races home. Both sides say they are defending the constitution — and yet neither side has a clear legal path that the other side accepts.This is a developing story.

Poland’s top court is in a standoff — here's what's happening

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