Polish Constitutional Tribunal assembly collapses after judges barred and police called

The failed assembly

On Tuesday 14 July the General Assembly of judges of the Constitutional Tribunal (TK), convened by President Bogdan Święczkowski to approve the 2027 budget and last year’s financial report, did not take place. It was the second attempt in a month; the first, in late June, had collapsed for lack of quorum. This time the gathering was meant to be held in a different room, but the underlying dispute over which judges are legitimate proved insurmountable.

Four of the six judges elected by the Sejm in March 2026 (Marcin Dziurda, Krystian Markiewicz, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska and Maciej Taborowski) are not recognised by President Święczkowski. Two of them, Dziurda and Markiewicz, were physically denied entry to the TK building. Korwin-Piotrowska and Taborowski were let in but only as “guests” without voting rights.

We have just left the general assembly that was convened by TK President Bogdan Święczkowski, because as TK judges we take the constitution, the Tribunal and Polish law very seriously.

During the session, judges Magdalena Bentkowska and Dariusz Szostek, the only two of the March cohort whose oath was received by President Karol Nawrocki on 1 April, demanded the meeting be postponed until all properly elected judges could participate. After their motion was rejected, both left the room, destroying the quorum of 10. The two “guest” judges also departed, leaving only eight judges from the PiS era in the chamber.

A layered dispute over judicial legitimacy

The six new judges were chosen by the current parliamentary majority. President Nawrocki invited only Bentkowska and Szostek to take the oath at the Presidential Palace. The other four, Korwin-Piotrowska, Taborowski, Dziurda and Markiewicz, took their oath in the Sejm on 9 April, using a formula addressed “before the president”, but Nawrocki did not schedule a ceremony for them. An additional judge, Sławomir Patyra, elected on 11 June and whose mandate began on 29 June, is still waiting for a date to swear the oath and has received no reply from the presidential chancellery.

TK President Święczkowski treats the four Sejm-swearers as intruders, refusing them case files and now barring them from the building. During Tuesday’s session, Korwin-Piotrowska asked for a formal objection to be recorded in the minutes:

I requested that the minutes record our position that we are fully-fledged, serving judges who not only have the right but also the duty to take part in the assembly.

Police and prosecutor at the Tribunal

After being denied entry, judges Markiewicz and Dziurda called the police. A prosecutor from the National Prosecutor’s Office, Andrzej Piaseczny, who is part of a team investigating incidents at key judicial institutions, also appeared at the building on al. Szucha. The police took down details of those responsible for the incident, but the two judges were still unable to enter.

President Święczkowski told Telewizja Republika that the events were an “attempted assault on a constitutional organ”. He explained that Bentkowska and Szostek had asked him to invite the two other elected judges as guests, which he did.

Official reactions and the wider crisis

Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said he assumed that “attempts were being made to prevent properly elected judges from participating in the Assembly convened by the acting President of the Tribunal”. He added that the prosecutor on site was part of a dedicated team handling sensitive investigations.

Three former TK presidents, Marek Safjan, Jerzy Stępień and Andrzej Zoll, issued a statement warning that the protracted crisis lowers the country’s authority and can be portrayed as evidence of the ineffectiveness of rule-of-law institutions. Professor Zoll told Fakt.pl bluntly: “Today there is no Constitutional Tribunal.”

The standoff means that the Tribunal, already paralysed in its adjudicative function, cannot even perform its internal administrative duties, the budget for 2027 remains unapproved. The coalition government does not publish rulings of the PiS-era TK and had hoped to break the deadlock by electing its own judges, but the split over presidential oaths has instead created a three-layer composition: eight judges from the previous parliament, two sworn before Nawrocki, four sworn only in the Sejm, and one still awaiting an oath.