Archive republication on 12 November 2026. This background analysis reflects the information available on 31 October 2026. References to forthcoming dates relate to that reporting date.
As at: 31 October 2026
On Friday evening, a notice appeared on the website of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal stating that the Tribunal’s president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański, had been relieved of their duties for one month. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the longest-serving judge, would temporarily lead the Tribunal. Shortly afterwards, the Tribunal’s official social media account declared that the website had been unlawfully taken over: Święczkowski remained president, and Korwin-Piotrowska was not a judge of the Tribunal. The institution spoke of a coup d’état.
Police subsequently secured the grounds after Korwin-Piotrowska and Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek warned of possible dangers to judges and staff. Several hundred demonstrators gathered outside the building, mainly supporters of the opposition PiS party. According to police, three people were arrested. President Karol Nawrocki cut short his trip to Senegal, returned to Warsaw and declared that the constitutional order had been violated by force. He convened talks with representatives of the parliamentary groups for Saturday. Prime Minister Donald Tusk defended the action as a difficult but necessary step towards restoring the rule of law. Reuters reported on the escalation and the opposing positions [1]; Nawrocki’s statement is published on the president’s website [2].
What happened in Warsaw is more than a dispute over two leadership posts. The conflict reveals that the political camps cannot even agree on who qualifies as a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal. And because the institution that ought to settle this dispute is itself contested, the country lacks an arbiter whose authority both sides accept.
A court with substantial power — and clear rules for electing its judges
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, the Trybunał Konstytucyjny, reviews whether laws are compatible with the constitution. It can therefore halt political initiatives by the government or parliament. The constitution provides for 15 judges, elected individually by the Sejm for a term of nine years. The state president, in turn, appoints the president and vice-president of the Constitutional Tribunal from a list of candidates submitted by the assembly of judges. The constitution does not require an oath of office for the election of judges by the Sejm; the obligation to take the oath in the presence of the state president is laid down in ordinary legislation. That law makes taking the oath the starting point of judicial service. The Tribunal’s president then assigns cases to the judges and must enable them to perform their judicial duties. Article 194 of the constitution governs these arrangements [3]; the Venice Commission describes the relationship between election, oath and entry into office in detail [4].
It is precisely this interaction that has become an institutional bottleneck. Parliament’s position is that it has elected the judges, and that the president may not subsequently block an election over which the constitution gives him no authority. The president counters that the statutory requirements for the oath must be met and that he may take account of objections concerning procedures or candidates. For his part, the incumbent president of the Tribunal has refused to allow the newly elected judges to perform judicial duties. Several successive steps — election, oath, recognition by the Tribunal’s leadership and allocation of cases — have thus developed into separate points of veto.
The wound of 2015
The background begins with the change of government in 2015. On 8 October, the outgoing Sejm elected five judges. Three were to take seats whose terms expired while the old parliament was still in office; two further seats would become vacant only during the term of the newly elected parliament. After the election, the new majority declared the earlier appointments ineffective and elected five other people to the same positions. President Andrzej Duda administered the oath to the five new candidates, but not to the five elected by the outgoing parliament.
On 3 December 2015, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that the previous majority had lawfully elected three judges, but had acted too early in relation to the two seats that would fall vacant later. The president was required to administer the oath to the three validly elected judges. That ruling did not resolve the conflict: the three could not take up their judicial duties, while three of those elected by the new majority occupied seats that, according to the ruling, had already been filled. The dispute over these so-called double appointments caused lasting damage to trust in the Tribunal’s composition. The Venice Commission reconstructs the events and judgment K 34/15 [4].
European courts subsequently upheld key criticisms, although each did so within a limited legal framework. In the 2021 case Xero Flor v. Poland, the European Court of Human Rights found that a panel of the Constitutional Tribunal had not been a “tribunal established by law” because of serious defects in the appointment of one of the judges sitting on it. In December 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union found, in proceedings brought by the Commission against Poland, that Poland had breached EU law. It referred to substantial irregularities in the appointment of three judges and the Tribunal’s president, and found that the requirements of an independent and impartial tribunal had not been met. However, the CJEU judgment does not declare every judgment of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal void across the board, nor does it automatically determine how each individual appointment since 2026 should be treated. It establishes a European legal framework, but does not replace a domestically accepted solution for the Tribunal’s current composition. The ECtHR judgment [5] and the CJEU press release of 18 December 2025 [6].
The attempt to repair the system itself becomes disputed
Following the change of government in 2023, Tusk’s coalition promised to restore judicial independence. In 2024, the Sejm declared its intention to remedy the consequences of the constitutional crisis. At the same time, the government announced that it would not treat as valid judgments, or publish, decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal involving judges whose status was contested. Parliament passed two laws reforming the Constitutional Tribunal in 2024; Nawrocki’s predecessor referred them to the Tribunal for review. In 2025, the Tribunal declared central provisions unconstitutional, preventing the reform laws from entering into force. Institutional restructuring therefore remained blocked.
This is the government’s dilemma: anyone seeking to restore an institution criticised as unlawful must establish rules that are also acceptable to political opponents. At the same time, a state president or Tribunal president close to a political minority can, through inaction, prevent a parliamentary election from having any practical effect. If the government then fails to publish judgments, swears in judges outside the prescribed procedure or changes access to the Tribunal with state support, it in turn faces the accusation that it is replacing one form of party-political control with another. The rule of law is not restored simply by one’s own side imposing its interpretation of the law.
Eight newly elected judges, five disputed oaths
In 2026, the Sejm elected a total of eight judges to the Constitutional Tribunal. It elected six in March. On 1 April, President Nawrocki received the oath of two of those judges, but not of the other four. Those four took the oath in parliament on 9 April in the presence of the Speaker of the Sejm and a notary, and sent certified copies to the president. The Tribunal’s president nevertheless did not allow them to participate in adjudication; they also received no judicial remuneration and could not participate in the assembly of judges. Five of the eight elected judges — the four elected in March and Maciej Berek — have not taken the oath in the presence of the president.
The ECtHR intervened in May with an interim measure. It called on the Polish state to ensure that the competent authorities did not prevent the four applicants from taking up and exercising their judicial duties until the request for further interim measures had been determined. This was a serious instruction to the state, but not yet a final judgment on the lawfulness of the election or the interpretation of Polish law. In May, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, for its part, ruled that the statutory provision was unconstitutional insofar as it obliged the president to administer the oath. The Venice Commission later noted that the five-member panel included two judges whose own election the ECtHR had previously found defective. That makes the decision another element of the dispute over legitimacy, rather than its generally accepted conclusion. The ECtHR measure of 5 May [7] and the Venice Commission’s analysis [4] are particularly important here.
In June, parliament elected a further judge, whose oath the president received on 28 July. Another election followed in September. The candidate Maciej Berek took the oath in parliament on 14 October after receiving no invitation from the president. The president and his staff justified the failure to administer the oath by citing, among other things, doubts about the election procedures and the qualifications of individual candidates. The judges and the government consider that such scrutiny involves a power the president does not possess. The selection of individuals also remains politically contested: Berek had worked for the Tusk government, which the opposition cites as evidence of a party-political appointment. Previous service in a government does not, in itself, prove either a lack of independence or a lack of qualifications. That is precisely why transparent requirements and a reviewable procedure are needed, rather than a political veto. The Venice Commission sets out the main stages of the elections and the different reasons given [4]; Polskie Radio reported on Berek’s oath and his exclusion from adjudication [8]; Reuters provides context on Berek’s former government role [1].
What the Venice Commission clarifies — and what it does not
On 13 October 2026, the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission published an opinion on the president’s powers. It is not a court, and its recommendation is not binding. Its substantive position is nevertheless clear: the constitution assigns the election of constitutional judges to the Sejm; it gives the president no power of review or veto over that election. The president must receive the oath without undue delay. If he unjustifiably refuses or delays doing so, the oath may exceptionally be taken without his physical presence — provided that it is taken in the prescribed form, verified and formally transmitted to the president. The Commission stresses that this alternative is intended to preserve the constitutional allocation of powers and prevent the Tribunal from being blocked. The full opinion [4].
This opinion strengthens the position of the judges sworn in during April and of the government on the specific question of the presidency’s role. But it does not resolve disputes over the lawfulness of individual elections, the powers of the Tribunal’s president, the effect of judgment K 3/26 or the lawfulness of the events of 30 October. Nor does it automatically legitimise executive intervention in the Tribunal. It is an important European legal opinion, but not an enforceable judgment on the Tribunal’s current leadership.
The escalation of 30 October: enforcing the law or seizing power?
The opposing camps describe the same night in contradictory terms. Nawrocki spoke of the forcible takeover of a constitutional body and demanded that the security forces dispatched by the government leave the grounds. The existing Tribunal leadership said that the website had been hijacked and described Korwin-Piotrowska as a non-judge. The government argues that the judges elected by parliament must be allowed to begin their work and that the existing leadership had obstructed the Tribunal’s operation. Police said that they had been on the grounds because of specific safety concerns and were required to respect the Tribunal’s independence. The confrontation at the entrance became a symbol in its own right: videos showed Nawrocki attempting to get past the judges. Justice Minister Żurek called for the incident to be examined; Maciej Berek alleged a physical assault. These are political statements and, as yet, not judicial findings. Nawrocki’s statements [2], reports on the police measures and the contradictory announcements [9], AP’s account of the protests and arrests [10] and Euronews’ account of the confrontation [11] show how far apart the interpretations are.
Korwin-Piotrowska is neither simply “not a judge”, nor does her election automatically make every subsequent action lawful. The Sejm elected her; she took the oath before the parliamentary speaker in April. Whether that suffices in light of the statutory wording “in the presence of the president” is precisely what is disputed. Even accepting the European opinion on the alternative oath procedure does not necessarily establish that she was entitled unilaterally to suspend the existing Tribunal leadership. Conversely, the claim that there has been a coup d’état is not a judicial finding either. The legal assessment of the specific suspension and of access to the building must be independent and transparent.
According to reports of 31 October, Korwin-Piotrowska was said to have convened an assembly of all constitutional judges for 3 November. At the reporting date, it remained unclear whether it could meet with a lawful composition and whether both camps would recognise its decisions. President Nawrocki announced talks with the parliamentary groups for 31 October. They were due to take place later that Saturday; no outcome was publicly known by the editorial deadline. A leading representative of the Poland 2050 party called on the president and prime minister to hold direct talks on a fresh start for the Tribunal. At that point, the meetings might prevent further escalation — or reveal that even a political way out could fail over the question of which judges were entitled to take part in decisions at all. The situation as reported by Tagesschau at the time [12] and Polskie Radio’s report on the announced talks [13].
The real damage: citizens lose a reliable court
When the Constitutional Tribunal’s composition and leadership are disputed, more is at stake than the prestige of political actors. The question is whether citizens, businesses and public authorities can rely on a court to determine constitutional questions authoritatively. A judgment whose panel one side rejects as unlawful may formally be delivered, but lose its social and institutional effect. A government that recognises judicial decisions selectively compounds the same damage. And a president who can block appointments through inaction, although the constitution does not assign that election to him, creates a lasting means of undermining parliament’s authority.
The obvious repair is therefore neither a return to the old composition nor the immediate refilling of all contested seats according to the wishes of the current coalition’s majority. What is needed is a procedure that transparently examines individual vacancies and terms of office, implements the decisions of European courts and establishes a clear, reviewable process for all future elections. That includes an automatic alternative route if the president does not receive an oath, transparent criteria for candidates and an independent procedure for assessing disputed appointments. Where the legal position is seriously unclear, clarification is needed from a competent, impartial court — and, until then, restraint from all organs of the state.
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal needs more than new judges. It needs a majority, an opposition and an executive that accept that an independent court does not belong to them. The power struggle in Warsaw shows how quickly a state governed by the rule of law can fall into crisis when every procedural step becomes a political instrument and no actor is willing any longer to recognise the decision of a neutral arbiter. At the reporting date, the next question was not only who would sit in the courtroom on 3 November. What mattered was whether Poland would subsequently again have a Constitutional Tribunal whose decisions even the losers of the day accepted as law.