So what gave her the right to act?

Transcript

1. On Friday evening, Poland's president turned his plane around on the way to Senegal.
2. In Warsaw,
3. the court that checks laws against the constitution was saying two opposite things.
4. Its website published an order suspending its president for a month.
5. Its official account said the order's signatory isn't one of its judges.
6. Police say a court judge and the prosecutor general called them,
7. and that they stayed outside.
8. 7 people elected this year entered through a gate from the prime minister's office,
9. with state guards, the leadership's spokeswoman says.
10. The signatory says she now stands in for the court's president.
11. The court's account called it a coup.
12. The prime minister called it restoring the rule of law.
13. The court's president got through the gate.
14. A police cordon stopped him.
15. Just before 1 a.m.,
16. Poland's president arrived and squeezed past people in the doorway.
17. Inside, he said, "You are not judges of this court."
18. Each side accuses the other of assault.
19. He left around 5, alleging a forcible takeover.
20. To see why, count the court's seats.
21. There are 15.
22. Parliament elects the judges, who must take an oath before the president.
23. This year, it elected 8.
24. The president took the oath from 3.
25. The other 5, including the signatory, swore in parliament instead.
26. His office questions their selection or qualifications.
27. The court's leadership kept them off the bench.
28. Its list has 10 judges.
29. In May, the court itself ruled the president has no absolute duty to swear judges in.
30. Europe's human rights court told Poland, for now, to let 4 of them work.
31. The court's president disputed that authority.
32. The government hasn't recognised this court since 2023.
33. Last December, the EU's court found it lacked independence under EU law,
34. over 3 judges appointed in 2015 and its president in 2016.
35. None of them sits there today.
36. Her order also accuses the court's
37. leadership of blocking budget decisions and hand-picking panels.
38. So what gave her the right to act?
39. She cites a rule that the judge with the longest service,
40. as the law counts it, stands in, and counts hers from 1995.
41. It cites a gap in disciplining the court's president
42. and invokes "a state of higher constitutional necessity".
43. Poland's ombudsman said no such legal concept exists,
44. though she understands the judges.
45. She rests on her order, the court's leadership on its list of 10,
46. and neither European decision settles whether Friday's suspension was lawful.
47. On Tuesday, she has called the judges to a meeting on next year's budget.
48. The court never adopted one, and the government's draft gives it nothing.
49. Will they meet?
50. And who will be in the chair?