Slovenia's Janša lists EU rule-of-law cases, including Poland's Constitutional Tribunal

Suspension and a new leader at the Tribunal

On Friday, 30 October, Poland's Constitutional Tribunal announced that its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and vice-president, Bartłomiej Sochański, had been suspended from their duties. The judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, elected by the current Sejm, was named to direct the Tribunal's work. The changes set off a dispute between representatives of President Karol Nawrocki and the judges the current Sejm chose, and media later published recordings of the confrontation inside the building.

Nawrocki cuts short his trip

On Friday evening President Karol Nawrocki interrupted a flight to Senegal and travelled to the Tribunal building, arriving during the night. After leaving the building, he announced urgent consultations with parliamentary forces, arguing that the constitutional order had been violated. Prime minister Donald Tusk responded that restoring the rule of law was the government's duty. The reports do not say when the consultations will take place or who will take part in them beyond parliamentary forces.

Janša's list of ten cases

On Saturday, 31 October, Slovenian prime minister Janez Janša posted on X a list of ten developments that he said nobody expected to be possible without consequences in EU member states when Slovenia joined. The first items were the annulment of Romania's presidential election and the closure of a news programme on Hungary's public television. He placed police being sent to the Polish Constitutional Tribunal on the same list, and also cited police taking over Polish public television and replacing its management. For Slovenia he pointed to the jailing of a party leader who leads in the polls three weeks before the election, and to the ending of the national broadcaster's leadership mandates with a purge of staff. Other items were the jailing of former Hungarian government members without a chance to defend themselves, the fast-track granting of almost a million citizenships to what he called illegal migrants in Spain, and the closure of a new nuclear plant alongside a gas pipeline from Russia in Germany. He also criticised the EU for taxing coal-based energy while nuclear plants were being shut and industry moved to countries with weaker environmental standards.

Reactions from European conservatives

Italian members of the European Parliament also responded. Carlo Fidanza, who heads the Brothers of Italy delegation in the European Conservatives and Reformists group and is vice-chair of the party, issued a statement describing the government's actions as an attempt to overturn the constitutional order, which he called a 'light' version of a coup. He condemned Tusk's government for moving away from liberal democracy and backed President Nawrocki's efforts to restore constitutional order. Nicola Procaccini, co-leader of the ECR group in the European Parliament, said the government's actions were a clear and serious breach of the rule of law. He condemned what he described as an attack on judicial independence and expressed support for the president's defence of the constitutional order.

Where the dispute stands

The Tribunal dispute now reaches beyond Poland, as Janša's post and the MEP statements show. The reports do not give a date for the consultations Nawrocki announced. They also do not set out a timetable for the Tribunal's work under its newly named leadership.