Presidential office to file complaints against Constitutional Tribunal judges over Nawrocki's night entry

Tribunal leadership dispute

On Friday, 30 October, the Tribunal announced that its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and vice-president, Bartłomiej Sochański, had suspended their duties. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the judge with the longest service, was named to lead the court. That evening a group that included judges elected by the Sejm entered the building under police escort, and the two suspended officials were not let in. President Karol Nawrocki interrupted a flight to Senegal, returned to Warsaw and went to the Tribunal shortly after midnight. Media later published recordings of his entry and of the dispute between his representatives and the Sejm-elected judges.

Dueling accounts of the entry

The sides describe the night differently. Presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz told Radio Wnet on Sunday that the president's inviolability was breached, and that Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, Maciej Berek and Krystian Markiewicz had no right to touch him. The Chancellery said it would file notifications with prosecutors against the three, and argued that any citizen may enter a public institution such as the Tribunal. Korwin-Piotrowska told TVN24 that the president pushed forward with force, trying to run into her and the group of judges standing at the entrance, and that after the first attempt failed he pushed her aside with his hands.

Nowa Lewica senator Anna Górska disputed this on Polsat News. She said recordings checked by her side contain no statement by the judge telling the president he would not enter. She also said an open hand was held toward the president while he pulled the judge with both arms, rejecting claims of fists. Górska put her position bluntly:

“The only person who entered the Constitutional Tribunal by force during these events was President Karol Nawrocki.”

Presidential minister Marcin Przydacz called the claims a lie, and Krzysztof Bosak, deputy marshal of the Sejm, said police were blocking the judges' entry.

Legal case and reactions

Justice minister Waldemar Żurek said on Sunday that the entry should be assessed under criminal law. He said the building's inviolability had been breached and that prosecutors must draw consequences. He also said the president's staff had behaved with complete impunity inside the building. Żurek added that the first hearings and substantive rulings at the Tribunal were a matter of weeks away.

“I already assess his entry into the Tribunal in criminal-law terms. It was a violation of the inviolability of the Tribunal building.”

On Polsat News, PiS deputy chair Patryk Jaki called the judges elected by the Sejm unworthy of the office. He argued that the law requires judges to take an oath before the president before assuming their duties, and said these judges had taken over the building without having sworn it. Jaki went further in his criticism:

“In a normal, democratic state they should actually be arrested.”

Blame and legal reasoning

Bartosz Arłukowicz, a Civic Coalition MEP and former health minister, placed the blame for the crisis on the president, arguing that he had not sworn in the judges elected by the Sejm. Legal scholar Sławomir Matczak wrote on X that the judiciary is constitutionally separate and protected, and that a president cannot enter state institutions at will or push security guards aside. He argued that public authority may act only where it has competence, which he said the president lacks for entering the Tribunal or appointing judges.

Next steps

The Chancellery has not given a date for filing the complaints against Korwin-Piotrowska, Berek and Markiewicz. Żurek's timeline for the first Tribunal hearings is only given in weeks, without a date. The dispute over who leads the court and who holds judicial office remains unresolved in the sources.