Riot police deployed as Poland’s constitutional court dispute escalates

Riot police were deployed outside Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw on Friday as a dispute over control of the court intensified between Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government and the opposition Law and Justice party, or PiS.

Hundreds of PiS supporters gathered after judges elected by the current parliamentary majority announced the suspension of tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański. Police said three people were arrested after trying to enter the court complex, according to Al Jazeera.

Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek has also requested that the two senior judges be stripped of immunity so they can face criminal charges for allegedly preventing five recently elected judges from hearing cases. One of those judges, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, has been placed temporarily in charge of the tribunal.

The tribunal said Święczkowski and Sochański remained its legally appointed leaders and accused those involved in the actions of committing a coup d’état. Tusk defended the government’s approach, saying it was necessary to restore the rule of law after PiS’s years in power.

President Karol Nawrocki, a PiS ally, abandoned a trip to Senegal and returned to Warsaw as the confrontation unfolded.

The dispute stems from judicial appointments made during and after PiS took office in 2015. European courts later found that three PiS-appointed judges had improperly filled seats already validly occupied and ruled that the tribunal was no longer independent and impartial. Tusk’s government has relied on those rulings to stop publishing the tribunal’s decisions, while presidential vetoes have impeded its efforts to reverse the PiS-era changes.