Tusk's government is accused of a 'coup' for moving to oust and prosecute Poland's top judges appointed by the nationalist right
President Karol Nawrocki inside the Constitutional Tribunal in the early hours of Saturday, confronting Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the government-backed judge who declared herself head of the court, and the other newly appointed judges, telling them they 'are not judges'. He had turned his plane around mid-flight to Senegal to return to Warsaw.President Karol Nawrocki pushes through the police cordon outside the Constitutional Tribunal shortly before 1am. Government-appointed judges had suspended the court's president, Bogdan Święczkowski, a move the tribunal itself called 'the crime of a coup d'état'.A locksmith cuts through the gate chains of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal as Bogdan Święczkowski, the suspended court president and former PiS deputy justice minister, attempted to enter the building with opposition…President Karol Nawrocki enters the Constitutional Tribunal building in Warsaw late on Friday night after a stand-off with police. The suspended court president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański, face being stripped of immunity so criminal charges can be brought.Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, whose government's appointees on the Constitutional Tribunal suspended its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and moved to strip him and his deputy of immunity, the move the tribunal has called 'the crime of a coup d'état'.President Karol Nawrocki (second left) inside the Constitutional Tribunal with Zbigniew Kapiński, First President of the Supreme Court (far left), Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the President's Office (centre), Sławomir Cenckiewicz, head of the National Security Bureau (second right), and Bartłomiej Sochański, the tribunal's vice-president (far right), one of the two officials suspended and facing the loss of immunity.
Poland's Constitutional Tribunal declared a 'coup d'etat' was underway after Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government suspended court president Bogdan Swieczkowski and his deputy Bartlomiej Sochanski, then moved to strip both of their legal immunity so criminal charges could be brought against them.
President Karol Nawrocki abandoned his state visit to Senegal mid-flight, forcing his way through hundreds of protesters outside the Warsaw tribunal before 1am to enter the building.
PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski condemned the move as an 'assault' on the court; Nawrocki called it 'a violation of Poland's constitutional order' and demanded security forces leave.
The row has roots in 2015, when PiS packed the tribunal with its own judges — a process European courts later ruled partly unlawful — leaving both sides refusing to recognise each other's appointees.
