On Friday 30 October, in Warsaw, the police surrounded the Constitutional Tribunal, the Polish equivalent of our Constitutional Court. Shortly before, a judge elected by Parliament but never sworn in by the Head of State had suspended the President of the Court and his deputy for one month. The President of the Republic, Karol Nawrocki, who was informed whilst on a flight to Senegal, cut short his state visit and returned to Warsaw.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the former President of the European Council, defended the move as a necessary step towards restoring the rule of law. The sovereigntist right-wing opposition, along with the leadership of the Court, were quick to describe it as a “coup d’état”.

The truth is more complex than either version suggests. Friday’s events mark the latest chapter in a ten-year-long dispute centred on three questions. Who has the right to sit on that Tribunal, and who has taken a seat there without authorisation? What limits are imposed on the President of the Republic when faced with judges elected by Parliament? And what is the relationship between the Polish Constitution and EU law?

The European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Venice Commission have already ruled on all three questions. In the view of the two courts, the Tribunal, as currently constituted, is not a legitimate court; furthermore, according to the Court of Justice, the Polish Constitution cannot be invoked against EU law. As for the Venice Commission, the President has no right of veto over judges elected by Parliament. If anything, the doubts concern the method chosen on Friday.

The crisis is serious and, in our view, is not likely to end any time soon.

Who are the key players and what do they want?

This story features political parties, individuals and courts that are little known in the rest of Europe. Here is a brief overview.

• PiS (Law and Justice): a national-conservative party led by Jarosław Kaczyński. It was in power from 2015 to 2023 and is now the main opposition party.
• KO (Civic Coalition): a moderate party led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a member of the European People’s Party. It has led the government since December 2023.
• The governing coalition: KO, together with the centrist parties Poland 2050 and Centre, the agrarian party PSL and the New Left. It has around 240 MPs out of 460.
• Confederation: a radical right-wing and sovereigntist party, also in opposition.
• Karol Nawrocki: President of the Republic since August 2025. A historian and former head of the Institute of National Remembrance, he was elected as an independent candidate with the support of the PiS. He has the power to veto legislation.
• Sejm: the Lower House, the most important branch of Parliament. It elects the judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.
• Constitutional Tribunal: fifteen judges, each elected individually by the Sejm for a nine-year term. It determines whether laws comply with the Constitution.
• Bogdan Święczkowski: President of the Court since December 2024. Formerly Deputy Minister of Justice in PiS governments.
• Anna Korwin-Piotrowska: a magistrate, elected as a constitutional judge by the Sejm in March 2026. The President of the Republic never administered the oath of office to her.
• Waldemar Żurek: Minister of Justice in the Tusk government. In Poland, he is also the Attorney General.
• Court of Justice of the EU: the European Union’s court, based in Luxembourg. Its judgements are binding on all Member States.
• European Court of Human Rights: the Council of Europe’s court, based in Strasbourg. It is not part of the EU: it ensures compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.
• The Venice Commission: a group of experts on constitutional law within the Council of Europe. Its opinions are not binding, but they carry considerable weight in Europe.

Poland is divided almost exactly down the middle. In June 2025, Nawrocki defeated Tusk’s candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski, by 50.9 per cent to 49.1 per cent. Today, the government stands on one side and the president on the other, and the dispute over the Court is the main focus of the conflict.

The Tusk government. In the 2023 elections, PiS came first but failed to find any allies. A broad coalition, ranging from the People’s Party to the Social Democrats, won the election on one key promise: to restore the rule of law after eight years of PiS government. Essentially, the rule of law means that judges are independent of politics and that the rules apply to everyone.

His argument: between 2015 and 2023, PiS placed its own people in the courts through illegal procedures, and those appointments must be rectified. The rulings of the European courts must be respected. With this stance, Tusk brought the row with Brussels to a close: in 2024, the EU unfroze the European funds and closed the proceedings against Poland for breaching common values.

The PiS and the President. The PiS maintains that its judicial reforms were legitimate and served to modernise a closed and self-referential judiciary. It accuses Tusk of using the rule of law as a pretext to oust opponents from public institutions. It argues that it is up to Poland to decide how its courts are organised, not Brussels or Strasbourg.

Nawrocki agrees with this view and uses the president’s powers to rein in the government: he vetoes bills and rejects appointments. His argument is that if an appointment is the president’s prerogative, the president can also reject it.

The European Union. The European institutions support a return to the rule of law and have for years criticised the PiS’s reforms. However, they are calling for the situation to be rectified through legal means, without taking any shortcuts.

The public. According to a poll conducted in April 2026, over 55 per cent of Poles do not trust the Constitutional Tribunal. At the same time, over two-thirds are against leaving the European Union: the country is divided over the judiciary, not over Europe.

What does the Constitutional Court do, and why is it important?

The Court is the arbiter of the rules. It can strike down a law if it conflicts with the Constitution and settles disputes between institutions. Those who oversee it can block a government’s reforms, or allow them to go ahead.

During the PiS years, the Court has handed down rulings that have affected everyone’s lives. In 2020, it banned abortion in cases of severe foetal malformations, prompting hundreds of thousands of Poles to take to the streets; today, around two-thirds of citizens would like to see a less restrictive law. In 2021, it ruled that parts of the European Treaties were incompatible with the Polish Constitution.

The Court continues to hand down rulings even today, often against the government. In July 2026, following an appeal by the PiS, it struck down the law recognising same-sex marriages solemnised in other EU countries.

For its part, the government does not recognise these judgements. Since 2024, it has not published them in the Official Gazette and has not enforced them: over seventy, according to current estimates. The result is that in Poland, there are two conflicting interpretations of what constitutes law.

How it all began: 2015

It all began in autumn 2015, when power passed from Civic Platform, Tusk’s party, to PiS. Before stepping down, the outgoing majority appointed five judges: three to fill posts that would become vacant during its term of office, and two ‘in advance’, for posts that would fall to the next Parliament. PiS won the elections, annulled all five appointments and, in December, appointed five of its own judges. Three of them took up posts that had already been duly allocated. In Poland, they are known as the ‘duplicates’.

The court at the time ruled against both sides, but to varying degrees. The two early appointments made by Piattaforma Civica were deemed invalid; the other three were valid, and the president must swear in those judges. The election of the three PiS candidates who were appointed twice is unconstitutional.

The then president, Andrzej Duda, who was close to PiS, did the opposite: he appointed the duplicates and excluded the judges who had been duly elected. In December 2016, Julia Przyłębska took over as head of the Tribunal, having been chosen at a meeting in which the majority of the judges present refused to vote. From that moment on, the Tribunal ceased to act as a counterweight to the sovereignist government and often endorsed decisions that were in open conflict with the European treaties.

European decisions

Two European courts, each independent of the other, have reached the same conclusion: the Polish Tribunal, as it is currently constituted, is not a genuine court.

Strasbourg, May 2021. A Polish company, Xero Flor, had lost a case before a panel of the Court which included one of the duplicate judges. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the panel was not a court ‘established by law’, and that the company had not received a fair trial.

Luxembourg, 18 December 2025. The Court of Justice of the EU, sitting in its full bench, ruled in favour of the European Commission on all counts (Case C-448/23). Put simply, it made three points:

• the rulings by which the Court, in 2021, placed the Polish Constitution above European rules violate the Treaties, which Poland signed upon joining the Union;
• No state may invoke its ‘constitutional identity’ as a reason for failing to respect the EU’s founding values, such as the independence of the judiciary; and if a national judge believes that the EU has overstepped its powers, they must refer the matter to Luxembourg, not decide on their own;
• Due to the overlapping appointments and the manner in which Przyłębska was appointed, the Court is not an independent and impartial tribunal.

This is the first time that the Court of Justice has denied the status of a court to a Member State’s constitutional court. Other national courts had already challenged Luxembourg, such as the German court in 2020. However, none had questioned the primacy of European law in such a radical manner, and none was composed of judges appointed in breach of its own constitution.

This is the first point to clarify. When Tusk says that the current Court is not legitimate, he is simply repeating what the two highest European courts have ruled.

2026: Elected judges who cannot take up their posts

For over two years, Tusk’s majority therefore boycotted the Court: it did not recognise it and did not appoint judges. In March 2026, it changed its strategy. It decided to fill the vacant posts, as provided for in the Constitution, and to reform the Court from within.

On 13 March, the Sejm elected six judges. However, in order to take up their posts, the law requires them to take an oath before the President of the Republic. Nawrocki administered the oath to two of them and excluded the other four – including Korwin-Piotrowska – stating that he had doubts about how they had been selected.

On 9 April , the four excluded members took the same oath in Parliament, in the presence of the Speaker of the Sejm, a notary and four former presidents of the Court. They then sent the written oath to the Head of State. However, Święczkowski did not accept it.

In May, the four turned to Strasbourg, and the European Court of Human Rights issued an urgent order that they be allowed to carry out their duties. The Tribunal responded that Strasbourg has no overriding authority and, a few days later, at the request of the PiS, ruled that the President is not obliged to swear in the elected judges: the opposite of what it had stated in 2015, when the President’s power of appointment had been described as more formal than substantive.

In the months that followed, the Sejm elected two further judges. One took the oath before Nawrocki but is refusing to work in solidarity with his colleagues; the other was excluded, just like the first four.

So, at present, there are eight judges elected in 2026: three have been sworn in by the President, and five are currently blocked. On paper, the newcomers constitute a majority of the fifteen-member panel. In reality, the doors to the Court have remained closed.

The dispute has spread to the ordinary courts, where judges are indeed appointed by the President, on the recommendation of the National Council of the Judiciary. Nawrocki has refused to appoint 46 proposed new judges and has threatened not to appoint any for the duration of his term of office.

Can the president say no?

According to the Venice Commission, the President of the Republic of Poland cannot oppose the appointment of constitutional judges elected by parliament. The opinion (CDL-AD(2026)031), published on 13 October 2026, had been requested in June by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The reasoning is simple. The Polish Constitution states that judges are appointed by the Sejm, and no one else. The oath marks the completion of the appointment; it is not a second examination. The President must therefore have the judges take their oaths immediately, without scrutinising how they were elected.

If the President refuses or drags his feet, says the Commission, it must be possible to take the oath without him, by means of a formal document certified by a notary and sent to the Head of State. This is, almost to the letter, what the four judges did on 9 April. The same principle applies to ordinary judges: the President cannot refuse their appointments at will.

The Presidency replied that the Commission’s opinions do not have the force of law in Poland, and that some of its conclusions are not in line with the Constitution. The government interpreted this quite differently: spokesperson Adam Szłapka said that the opinion merely states the obvious, which is clear to everyone “except the Presidential Palace and the PiS”.

Friday 30 October, step by step

After seven months of deadlock, the excluded judges decided to force the issue.

At 6.00 pm. A notice appears on the Court’s website: Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański, have been suspended for one month. It is signed by Korwin-Piotrowska, who considers herself the most senior judge thanks to her career in the judiciary, which began in 1995. She accuses them of preventing the elected judges from carrying out their duties, despite the order from Strasbourg.

In the evening. Justice Minister Żurek calls for the two men’s immunity to be lifted: without this step, they cannot be brought to trial. The decision will have to be made by the court itself.

The building. Seven of the new judges enter the building escorted by the State Protection Service, the body responsible for protecting senior officials. The Court’s website is handed over to them, whilst the official account on X remains under Święczkowski’s control, who denounces a “coup d’état”.

The square. Dozens of PiS supporters have gathered in front of the courthouse, and someone has cut through the fence. The police have detained three people for throwing objects and say they limited themselves to protecting the demonstration.

Politics. Tusk defends the operation: restoring the rule of law is a duty, a “difficult, sometimes painful” process. Kaczyński speaks of a “police state”. The first President of the Supreme Court, Zbigniew Kapiński, speaks of a coup d’état.

That night. Nawrocki, whilst flying to Senegal, turns the plane around. On his return to Warsaw, he meets with Święczkowski and Kapiński and enters the Court. Korwin-Piotrowska convenes a meeting of all the judges for 3 November.

Is it a coup? No, and here’s why

A coup d’état is the seizure of power outside the rules, usually by force: someone overthrows those in power and takes their place. Nothing of the sort happened on Friday.

No one has seized power. The Tusk government is in office because it won the election. The President is in his post and was able to enter the Court. Parliament is in session, the opposition has held demonstrations, and the newspapers have reported everything live.

It was a judge who decided, not the government. The order comes from a judge elected by the Sejm, the only body which, according to the Constitution, can appoint judges. Strasbourg has ordered that she be allowed to work, and the Venice Commission says that the President cannot block her. The government has backed her, but the decision is not its own.

It was the other side that had broken the rules. For seven months, the Tribunal’s leadership kept duly elected judges out, disregarding an order from an international court. And they are leading a panel that the Court of Justice of the EU has ruled to be non-compliant.

The charges are proceeding in accordance with the law. In order to put Święczkowski on trial, the Court must lift his immunity: a request has been made for this, not bypassed. And the new arrangement will be subject to a vote by the assembly of judges.

The precedent from 2015. In 2015, the PiS and President Duda refused to swear in judges who had been duly elected and installed their own. At the time, nobody on that side spoke of a coup d’état.

Talking about a coup transforms a dispute over the rules into a narrative of national resistance against Tusk and against Brussels, which is why the term was immediately picked up by the sovereigntist media, both in Poland and abroad. But ruling out the possibility of a coup does not settle the debate: the question remains as to whether the approach taken on Friday was the right one.

Doubts about the method, and why the crisis remains deep-seated

Ruling out the coup does not mean condoning the method. There are serious doubts about the way in which the suspension was decided, and this remains the most serious crisis since 2015, for five reasons.

The legal basis is weak. To suspend the senior judges, a provision designed for the ordinary courts was used, not for the Constitutional Tribunal, which has its own rules. The Strasbourg ruling protects judges’ right to work, not their right to suspend their colleagues. Marcin Matczak, a legal expert who is far from lenient towards Święczkowski, considers that basis to be non-existent ‘for a million reasons’; the former president of the Tribunal, Jerzy Stępień, on the other hand, does see a legal basis for it.

Today, there are effectively two courts. One is answerable to Parliament and the European courts, the other to the President of the Republic and the Supreme Court. Whatever judgement is handed down by either of them, half the country will not recognise it.

There is no referee. Usually, when two branches of government are in dispute, the Constitutional Court settles the matter. In Poland, however, the Constitutional Court is itself the subject of the dispute.

Nobody recognises anybody anymore. The government does not enforce the Court’s rulings, the Court ignores Strasbourg, and the President blocks the appointment of judges. Every institution regards at least one other as illegitimate.

The reforms are at a standstill. To override the President’s veto, three-fifths of MPs – 276 out of 460 – are needed, and the coalition has around 240. To amend the Constitution, a two-thirds majority is required. And the Venice Commission has already ruled out, in 2024, the shortcut of dismissing all sitting judges.

There is also a public image issue. Images of the police outside a court building are a gift to the opposition, with the 2027 general election just a year away.

What is happening now, and why does it affect the whole of Europe?

The first event is the judges’ meeting on 3 November. If there are enough new judges, they will be able to vote on immunity and put forward candidates to head the Court.

Here, too, however, there is an obstacle. The President and Vice-President of the Court are appointed by the Head of State, who chooses from among the candidates nominated by the judges. Nawrocki, who entered the building last night alongside the suspended leadership, has already chosen which side to take: without his signature, the new leadership would remain contested.

A stable solution would only come about through an agreement between the two sides – which seems unlikely at present – or through a new political balance: the 2027 elections and the end of Nawrocki’s term of office in 2030. Both are a long way off.

Prime Minister Tusk and those who oppose the malicious institutional paralysis imposed by President Nawrocki are banking on the idea that imperfect action is better than endless paralysis. The European courts agree with him on the merits of the case, but the rule of law is rebuilt through the law: any step that leaves itself open to accusations of arbitrariness risks prolonging the crisis rather than bringing it to an end.

Final thought: Europe needs a qualitative leap forward in constitutional terms: a genuine Constitution that sets out in black and white the scope of European law and entrusts a common court with the final say on conflicts with national legal systems. A federal Constitution that places European citizenship at its heart, giving every citizen the right to appeal to the Union’s courts when their country’s institutions breach the rules they are bound to follow, whilst also safeguarding the prerogatives of Member States in matters falling within their competence. And one that provides for real sanctions and powers of intervention in the event of violations and deadlock. Achieving a European Constitution worthy of the name will not be easy, because it will require the approval of all twenty-seven Member States. But without taking this leap, in a geopolitical context that is putting pressure on European democracies, events such as those in Poland will recur.