Nawrocki turns plane around as police seal constitutional tribunal

By The Conservative Desk (/journals/conservative-desk)

President Karol Nawrocki was still en route to Senegal. Police had cordoned off the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw. The court’s website had announced a one-month suspension of its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański. Nawrocki ordered the aircraft 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 said.

The date was October 30, 2026. By the time he reached the capital, officers held the perimeter of a constitutional institution while protesters massed outside. Jarosław Kaczyński and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki joined the crowd. Police said they were carrying out statutory activities and cited public order. Three protesters were arrested, according to Breitbart, AFP, and Fakti.bg.

Nawrocki pushed through the cordon and into the building. Government minister Maciej Berek gave the cabinet’s version of the encounter inside: “To use the most delicate of terms – the President forcefully bumped into Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska and began pushing his way through a group of other Judges.” Leaked audio reportedly captured Nawrocki telling Korwin-Piotrowska and two others that they were not judges. Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the presidential chancellery, accused her of a coup d’état.

Korwin-Piotrowska is the judge who announced the suspensions. The parliamentary majority elected her in March 2026. She was sworn in inside Parliament on April 9 without a presidential oath. Nawrocki had refused that oath, as he had rejected the oaths of three of the six judges the majority put forward. The suspensions reportedly rested on Article 130 of the ordinary-courts law. Poland’s Constitution, in Articles 194 and 195, governs Tribunal leadership and judicial independence. The tribunal’s own account on social media rejected her standing in plain terms: “Ms. 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.”

Prime Minister Donald Tusk presents the night as necessary repair work. His government has pressed a judicial overhaul since December 2023, aimed at reversing changes made while Law and Justice held power. The European Union ended its Article 7 proceedings against Poland in 2024 after that shift. “Restoring the rule of law is our duty,” Tusk said. “This process is difficult, at times even painful, and requires decisive action. There is no other way.”

That is the government’s case in its own words. Years of PiS influence left the tribunal, in Brussels’ judgment and in Tusk’s, compromised; only decisive action can restore proper function. The hard problem is the method. The president’s role in swearing judges is a constitutional check, not a ceremonial courtesy. When a majority elects judges, has them sworn inside Parliament because the president will not administer the oath, and then uses one of those figures to suspend the sitting leadership under a statute written for ordinary courts, “rule of law” becomes majority will backed by a police line at the courthouse door.

The composition fight is older than this cabinet. It dates to 2015, when Law and Justice moved to staff the tribunal after taking power and drew sustained criticism at home and in European courts. After 2023, Tusk’s coalition pledged to unwind those arrangements. Nawrocki, aligned with the former government, has blocked the new nominations. Last month parliament appointed Tusk ally Maciej Berek to the tribunal. Święczkowski, himself a former deputy justice minister under PiS, had declined to seat majority-elected judges. Who lawfully leads the body has remained unresolved. Allies of Korwin-Piotrowska appeared to take the tribunal website; they did not take its social account, which continued to call the suspension a coup.

Nawrocki stated the stakes without euphemism. He accused the government of violating constitutional order and forcibly taking over a constitutional body of state. “Due to the threat to the internal security of the Republic of Poland, I am calling urgent consultations today with representatives of parliamentary forces in order to stabilize the political situation and restore constitutional order. I thank everyone who is under the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Tribunal,” he said. He indicated that First President of the Supreme Court Zbigniew Kapiński also does not recognize as legal the actions of those he called usurpers, and he demanded that the forces of coercion leave the building.

Breitbart headlined the clash as the Tusk government seeking a forceful takeover of the tribunal. National File described police seizing the court while the president turned his plane. Both tracked what the footage showed: a sealed constitutional building, a leadership change announced by a judge the president never swore, and the head of state abandoning a foreign trip to get inside.

An American diplomatic statement caught the temperature. “The events unfolding tonight at Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal are very serious indeed. We appear to be witnessing an unprecedented confrontation over the government’s use of state power and the independence and authority of a constitutional institution,” it read. “Both sides offer sharply different accounts of what happened and why. Whatever the facts ultimately establish, thousands gathering outside the Tribunal make an already dangerous situation more combustible. The last thing Poland needs is a confrontation that spirals into something far worse.”

For limited government, the point is structural. A parliamentary majority can pass ordinary statutes. It does not get to settle the leadership of the Constitutional Tribunal by website post, police cordon, and a suspension order issued under a law meant for the regular courts. If Article 130 can remove the head of the tribunal, the hierarchy of norms has been flipped. Constitutional offices become subject to political discipline dressed as procedure. Public safety is not served by turning the doors of the top court into a protest line and a shoving match among constitutional officers. The taxpayer funds institutions that are supposed to apply the written charter, not stage its capture.

Control of the tribunal is control of the gate that decides which statutes stand. That fight will run straight into the 2027 parliamentary elections, with Tusk already in a difficult campaign and much of his domestic program blocked by the presidency. The cordon is why the plane turned around.

Nawrocki’s consultations were set at the presidential palace. Police remained at the tribunal. As of Saturday, the question of who lawfully leads Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal was still unanswered.