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Riot Police Surrounded Poland’s Constitutional Court. Both Sides Are Calling the Other’s Move a Coup.
A chief justice was suspended, a president turned his plane around over Africa, and a power saw appeared at the court gate. The fight is over who gets to say what the law is.
Someone cut through the fence of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal on Friday night. According to Notes from Poland, supporters of the court’s president tried to open a way in for him, and riot police stood between him and his own building. Hours earlier, the country’s president had ordered his plane back to Warsaw.
Bottom Line
On 30 October, the Tribunal announced that its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy had been suspended. The government of Donald Tusk, which backs the move, says it is restoring the rule of law. The Tribunal’s own account calls it a “coup d’état”. Both claims can’t be right in law, and Poland now has two groups of people who each say they run the country’s top constitutional court.
What Happened
Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska told state broadcaster TVP she issued the suspension order, per Notes from Poland. The Tribunal’s website announced a “break in the activities” of Święczkowski and deputy Bartłomiej Sochański, citing a provision of the law on common…
