A nighttime photo of a crowd gathered on a Warsaw street. In the foreground, many people are bundled in winter jackets and hats, and some hold up phones. Several hold white-and-red Polish flags, and tall promotional flags stand along the edge of the crowd.
Reported by:
Cherry Meigh Timbol
News Content Editor
Published October 31, 2026
WARSAW – Polish President Karol Nawrocki cut short a trip to Senegal on Friday and entered the Constitutional Tribunal early Saturday. This followed a police deployment at the court and the announced suspension of its president. Opposition politicians and the Tribunal called the move a “coup d’état,” while the government says it is restoring the rule of law.
What happened
At about 6 p.m. Friday, a notice appeared on the Tribunal’s website saying that President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański were suspended from duty. Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska was to take over leadership. The Tribunal said its website had been unlawfully taken over and denied the notice.
Warsaw police said officers were carrying out “statutory activities” at the site. They cited the judge’s warning of threats to the safety of staff and of possible public disorder. Three people who climbed the fence were detained.
Tribunal spokeswoman Weronika Ścibór said State Protection Service (SOP) officers entered through a gate linking the Tribunal to the Prime Minister’s office. She said they told two guards to leave and brought in seven judges elected by the Sejm. Korwin-Piotrowska said the seven judges were inside and that no police were in the building.
Nawrocki announced on X that he was ending his flight to Senegal because “at a moment like this, the President must be in Poland.” His plane landed in Warsaw at 9:43 p.m. According to Radio Zet, the SOP reportedly advised against going straight from the airport to the Tribunal.
Święczkowski reached the building around 8:17 p.m. and was not allowed in.
Protesters cut a chain on a gate, and he, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and others stepped onto the grounds. Officers stopped Święczkowski from going further. He urged calm and said he would return with the president.
After meeting First President of the Supreme Court Zbigniew Kapiński and Święczkowski at the Presidential Palace, Nawrocki went to the Tribunal just before 1 a.m. Saturday with Kapiński and entered the building.
Disputed incident at the entrance
Accounts of the entry conflict. The president’s spokesman said people in the doorway tried to block him and violated his personal inviolability. Minister Marcin Przydacz said Judges Krystian Markiewicz and Korwin-Piotrowska tried to grab the president. Judge Maciej Berek said the president “physically attacked” the judges. Video Berek posted shows Nawrocki asking a woman blocking his way to step aside, and other footage shows him pushing between people in the doorway.
Positions
President and allies: Nawrocki’s statement said constitutional order had been violated and a constitutional body seized by force. He called on the “forces of coercion” to leave. Kapiński called the action a “coup d’état.”
Government: Prime Minister Donald Tusk said restoring the rule of law after years of PiS-era lawlessness is “difficult, sometimes painful” and requires decisive action: “There is no other way.” Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said he had asked to lift the immunity of Święczkowski and Sochański, and a prosecutor was at the site.
Legal critics of the order: Constitutional law professor Marcin Matczak, who has criticized PiS’s handling of the Tribunal, said the suspension order has a weak legal basis. By his reading, a deputy can stand in only when the president is unable to act, and that inability was created by the order itself.
Other reactions: Poland’s ambassadors to China and Romania resigned in protest. Korwin-Piotrowska plans a General Assembly on November 3 to adopt the Tribunal’s budget, though it is unclear whether it would have a quorum.
Background
The government and the president have been in a long dispute over the Tribunal. Parliament elected six judges in 2026, but Nawrocki swore in only two. The Tribunal’s leadership refused to seat the other four. The dispute over who legally leads the court remains unresolved.
