Polish police deploy at Constitutional Tribunal as Nawrocki returns and enters building

Police reach the tribunal grounds

On Friday, 30 October, police officers arrived on the grounds of the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw between 17:00 and 18:00. Warsaw police (KSP) said in a statement on X that they acted on information from Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska about possible threats to the life or health of the tribunal's judges and staff and a risk of public disorder, and that the statement was issued after 17:30. Blick reports that a locksmith cut the gate chain late on Friday, but police stopped a group of opposition MPs and the tribunal's president, Bogdan Święczkowski, who were trying to get in. Supporters of the opposition Law and Justice party (PiS) gathered outside, and police reported that three people who jumped the fence onto the grounds were detained. Reports also describe objects thrown at officers during the protest.

A notice, an immunity request and a coup charge

A notice on the tribunal's website appeared around 18:00 saying that its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and vice president, Bartłomiej Sochański, would not exercise their duties for one month. Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska was to lead the court on an interim basis. Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said he had asked for the immunity of both men to be lifted so that criminal charges could be brought against them. The tribunal answered on its X account that the two judges remain legally appointed senior judges and that anyone taking part in these actions was committing the crime of coup d'etat. PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński described the move as a coup, while some participants prayed with rosaries and religious images and protesters chanted 'Tusk, traitor' outside the building.

Nawrocki turns his plane back

President Karol Nawrocki was flying to Senegal, bound for the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, when he had his plane turned around and landed in Warsaw. His chief of staff said he entered the tribunal building in the early hours of Saturday, 31 October, accompanied by Zbigniew Kapinski, president of the Supreme Court. Footage broadcast by television networks shows tension as the president tried to enter the building. The presidential spokesman Rafal Lekiewicz posted a video of the entry and said a crime had been documented when people tried to block the president, while Maciej Berek, Tusk's chief legal adviser and a candidate for the tribunal whose appointment the president had blocked, posted his own video and claimed Nawrocki had physically assaulted Korwin-Piotrowska and other judges. Both videos show the president forcing his way past people at the entrance.

The dispute over the judges and reactions abroad

Tusk's government, in office since 2023, wants to reverse what it regards as unlawful PiS-era interventions in the judiciary, while Nawrocki, in office since August 2025, has blocked those efforts. The Sejm elected six judges on 13 March 2026, but Nawrocki swore in only Magdalena Bentkowska and Dariusz Szostek, while the others, including Korwin-Piotrowska, took their oath at a ceremony in the Sejm. Reports differ on how many judges he refused to swear in, with one putting the number at three and another at five. US ambassador Tom Rose called for calm, saying both sides present radically different versions of events and that the thousands gathered at the tribunal add tension to an already dangerous situation. Polish ambassador to Romania Pawel Soloch resigned, following an earlier resignation by the head of the diplomatic mission in China, and Tusk wrote on X that restoring the rule of law is a difficult, sometimes painful process.