Tusk and Nawrocki clash over overhaul of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal
Poland’s fight over the Constitutional Tribunal sharpened on Tuesday when nationalist President Karol Nawrocki used a televised National Security Council opening to accuse Prime Minister Donald Tusk of an illegal power grab, without giving Tusk a chance to reply on camera. Tusk’s government and the European Commission had on Friday suspended the tribunal’s president and deputy; Tusk says an overhaul is needed so the EU’s sixth-largest economy meets EU impartiality standards after more than a decade of politicized appointments under Law and Justice (PiS), which left office in 2023.
Eight judges elected by the current parliamentary majority then met in a general assembly under Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who took control Friday. They said they formed a quorum after she temporarily suspended PiS-linked Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and deputy Bartłomiej Sochański, and treated a third PiS-era appointee, Jarosław Wyrembak, as occupying an improperly filled seat—leaving 12 of 15 judges eligible and cutting the two-thirds quorum from 10 to eight. They unanimously approved the 2027 draft budget and drew names for disciplinary panels against Święczkowski and Sochański. Nawrocki and the nationalist right reject Korwin-Piotrowska’s authority and the quorum; he still refuses to swear in five of the eight judges, whose parliamentary oaths he calls void.
Tusk had earlier asked Nawrocki to stop attacking the parliament-elected judges, warned that Moscow was exploiting the turmoil, and after the council offered a one-on-one meeting while saying the situation was stabilizing as the court resumed work. The clash is lining up the nationalist right against Tusk ahead of the 2027 parliamentary election.
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