Polish President Karol Nawrocki cut short his journey to Senegal and returned to Poland on Friday after a far-right ally was suspended as head of the country’s top court, intensifying a wider struggle with Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government over control of the judiciary.
Earlier on Friday, the Constitutional Tribunal announced that its longest-serving judge, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, had suspended Bogdan Swieczkowski, the tribunal’s president and an appointee of Tusk’s far-right predecessor. Korwin-Piotrowska assumed leadership of the court.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the tribunal later that day as a heavy police presence surrounded the building. Right-wing politicians addressed the crowd, accusing Tusk’s government of staging a coup against the court.
“At a moment like this, the president must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning,” Nawrocki wrote on X.
Fresh confrontation in the long-running court dispute
The prolonged political conflict over Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has left the institution effectively paralysed. The pro-European government and the nationalist president have each refused to recognise judicial appointments made by the opposing side.
Tusk said on X that his government was working to restore the rule of law, after the European Union accused his predecessors in the Law and Justice Party of undermining it.
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“This process is difficult, at times even painful, and requires decisive action. There is no other way,” he said.
The dispute can be traced to 2015, when the nationalist Law and Justice party sought to appoint judges to positions that had already been filled by the previous government.
The party’s nominees secured a majority on the Constitutional Tribunal. Critics in Poland and abroad argued that the court no longer met the standards of an independent and impartial tribunal established under the law.
After Tusk’s coalition came to power in 2023, it pledged to restore the rule of law and reform the tribunal. But Nawrocki, an ally of Law and Justice, has worked to block those efforts since being elected president in 2025.
Earlier this year, Nawrocki refused to swear in three of six judges nominated by parliament. Swieczkowski, a former deputy justice minister in the Law and Justice administration, also declined to seat judges elected by the current parliamentary majority.
Last month, parliament appointed Tusk ally Maciej Berek to the tribunal, a move critics said weakened the government’s stated objective of restoring checks and balances.
