By Andrzej Schultz and Katarzyna Krzyżanowska
On Friday, October 30, the rule of law crisis that has plagued Poland for more than ten years took another turn. The removal of the President and Vice-President of the Constitutional Tribunal led to uproar in front of the court’s building, with far-right politicians fabricating a “coup d’état” in the media. In their op-ed, Andrzej Schultz and Katarzyna Krzyżanowska dissect the various legal components of the events that have unfolded during the Polish government’s latest attempt to restore the country’s Constitutional Tribunal.
Poland’s constitutional crisis has lasted more than a decade, but October 30, 2026 marked a critical turning point. In an unprecedented move, seven of the eight constitutional judges appointed in 2026 by the liberal coalition entered the Constitutional Tribunal (CT), while Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska suspended the CT’s sitting President and Vice-President. Friday evening’s events were spectacular: hundreds of citizens and right-wing opposition politicians (including Jarosław Kaczynski) protested before the Tribunal’s premises; the police cordoned off the CT. Shortly after midnight, President Karol Nawrocki, an ally of the Law and Justice party (PiS), stormed through the Tribunal’s door. Images quickly and widely spread through the media and sparked heightened interest among the international public. This piece provides a chronological, exhaustive overview of legal facts and key decisions taken over five days of the crisis, from Friday October 30 to Tuesday November 3.
Context of the Constitutional Breakdown
The CT has been in crisis since 2015. Back then, the outgoing liberal government appointed five constitutional judges, despite being allowed to appoint only three. Before the Tribunal declared two appointments invalid, the PiS-dominated Parliament itself elected five judges to the CT. Hence, three persons were appointed to positions already held by lawfully appointed judges. These persons took an oath of office before President Andrzej Duda, who had previously refused to swear in the three judges lawfully appointed by the liberal government, thereby turning a constitutional obligation into a presidential prerogative. The former became the notorious judges-double or duplicate judges, whose legitimacy was contested before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Packed with judges siding with the PiS party, the CT became a “government enabler,” rubber-stamping any laws PiS forced through the Parliament. The CJEU also declared the appointment of the CT’s former President, Ms Julia Przyłębska, illegal because the duplicate judges participated in her election. The very same problem applies to Bogdan Święczkowski, the CT’s current President.
The liberal majority’s 2023 election victory was not sufficient to restore the CT’s functioning. The Tusk coalition ignored the CT and hoped to restore it once President Duda would leave office. However, in 2025, another PiS-backed politician, Karol Nawrocki, won the presidential election. In 2026, the ruling parties elected eight new constitutional judges. Some of these new judges have engaged in rule-of-law issues in the past; for instance, Krystian Markiewicz is a former President of the Judicial Association “Iustitia”, while Anna Korwin-Piotrowska was a co-founder and president of the Judicial Association “Themis”. President Nawrocki only accepted the oaths of three of them. The remaining five judges, whom Nawrocki refused, instead took the oath at the Sejm, explicitly stating that they were doing so “before the President of the Republic.” Moreover, the liberal government ceased to publish CT judgments and pay remuneration to constitutional judges appointed under PiS. The Venice Commission criticized the Polish Government’s refusal to publish the Tribunal’s judgments. Then, on May 5, 2026, based on an application by four of the judges appointed in 2026, the ECtHR issued an interim measure urging the Polish government to take necessary steps to enable the new judges to exercise their duties.
The Decision to Suspend the CT President and Vice-President
In the late afternoon of October 30, Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska issued orders concerning the temporary suspension from official duties of Bogdan Święczkowski, President of the CT, and Bartłomiej Sochański, Vice-President of the CT.
The orders are based on three groups of legal provisions. First, Articles 12(4) and 11(2) of the Act on the Organization of the CT stipulate that when the Vice-President or another judge cannot be authorized to exercise the powers of the CT’s President, the longest-serving judge replaces him. Second, Article 130 (1) of the Act on the Organization of Ordinary Courts allows a court’s President or the Minister of Justice to order the immediate suspension of a judge from official duties for up to one month. This is possible if the judge has been caught committing an intentional criminal offence or if the nature of the judge’s conduct requires their immediate removal from duties. Third, the orders are based on Art. 10(1) of the Act on the Supreme Court, read in conjunction with Art.19 of the Act on the Status of CT Judges. These provisions authorize applying norms that regulate the status of ordinary court judges to the CT judges. Thus, Judge Korwin-Piotrowska’s orders relied on a chain of legal references: the Act on the Status of CT Judges refers to the Act on the Supreme Court, which in turn refers to the Act on the Organization of Ordinary Courts.
The order suspending the CT’s President is based on four arguments. First, the CT needs to adopt its 2027 budget. President Święczkowski refuses to allow lawfully elected judges to participate in the General Assembly that would adopt the budget. Second, Święczkowski prevents five judges from performing their duties, contrary to the Act on the Status of CT Judges and the aforementioned interim measure of the ECtHR. Third, the CT President violates the Court’s commitment to political neutrality and independence through his political statements and by making the judges’ ability to adjudicate dependent on the position of the President of the Republic. Fourth, Święczkowski is responsible for irregularities in the Tribunal’s work, particularly by arbitrarily determining judicial panels and deliberately delaying certain proceedings.
According to the order, the CT President’s actions described above justify his immediate suspension from official duties. That the CT President has no superior cannot shield him from accountability. Consequently, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, relying on the provision allowing the longest-serving judge to perform the duties of the CT President, the principle of nemo est iudex, and a state of constitutional necessity, concluded that she was entitled to suspend Święczkowski from his official duties.
The second order, concerning Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański, draws on the same arguments as the one concerning Święczkowski, and explicitly refers to the CT President’s conduct. Only two specific allegations were made against the CT Vice-President himself. First, he was accused of failing to fulfil his duty to respond to the CT President’s acts. Thus, Sochański was considered jointly responsible for the situation within the Tribunal caused by Święczkowski. The second allegation concerns yielding to political pressure. When adjudicating in politically sensitive cases, the CT’s Vice-President allegedly violated the procedural rules governing proceedings before the Constitutional Tribunal.
With the CT President and Vice-President suspended from their official duties, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska assumed responsibility for directing the Constitutional Tribunal. In her first order, she convened the General Assembly of Judges for November 3, 2026.
President Nawrocki’s Involvement
Friday’s actions prompted an immediate reaction from the President of the Republic, who cut short his official visit to Senegal and returned to Warsaw. After meeting with Bogdan Święczkowski and neo-judge Zbigniew Kapiński (acting First President of Poland’s Supreme Court, appointed by the irregular National Council for the Judiciary), he went to the CT building.
Earlier, judges elected by the current Parliament, led by Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, had entered the CT building through the rear entrance, via the premises of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery. According to reports, they were assisted by the State Protection Service and the Police. Since other judges and staff members were absent, the judges elected by the current Parliament managed to “take control” of the building.
The public then witnessed some extraordinary scenes: Bogdan Święczkowski standing in front of the police cordon, attempting to enter the CT; right-wing politicians protesting outside, including Jarosław Kaczyński, Grzegorz Braun and Krzysztof Bosak; and the President of Poland pushing his way through police officers and physically pushing past Judge Korwin-Piotrowska to enter the building.
The following day, Judge Korwin-Piotrowska issued another order aimed at taking effective control over the organization and functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal. She revoked the existing authorizations to act on behalf of the CT President, restricted the activities of the Tribunal’s Chancellery and Legal Service Office, and suspended the Tribunal’s staff from performing their duties, while maintaining their right to remuneration. She further recommended that judges work outside the Tribunal’s premises and suspended the registry office’s operation.
The General Assembly of November 3
The General Assembly of the CT Judges was held on November 3. A first significant change was that this Assembly was broadcast live. This was particularly relevant because the judges, from the very beginning, faced a serious legal dilemma. Under Art. 8(1) of the Act on the Organization of the CT, the Assembly adopts resolutions by an absolute majority of votes, in the presence of at least two-thirds of the total number of judges. Since the constitutional number of CT judges is 15, the quorum required to adopt resolutions is 10 judges.
However, only 8 members of the court participated in the Assembly, all of them elected by the current Parliament. Accepting a quorum of 10 judges would have prevented the judges from taking any action. This, in turn, would have meant that the actions taken over the Halloween weekend to remove Święczkowski would have been in vain and ultimately ineffective. Thus, the Assembly took the position that the quorum should be calculated based on the number of judges capable of performing their judicial functions. Consequently, two judges suspended from their duties (Święczkowski, Sochański) and one judge-double were excluded from the calculation. The number of judges used to calculate the quorum was therefore reduced to 12, meaning that the presence of eight judges was considered sufficient to adopt resolutions. All the judges agreed with this interpretation of the relevant act. With that matter settled, the Assembly proceeded to discussions and adopted a resolution concerning the CT’s budget for 2027.
The Assembly then drew lots to determine judges who would sit on the disciplinary panels for the cases of Sochański and Święczkowski. Under Article 130(3) of the Act on the Organization of Ordinary Courts, the disciplinary court must be notified within three days of issuing an order temporarily suspending a judge from performing their duties. This court must then adopt a resolution either suspending the judge from their official duties or revoking the order.
According to the Assembly, disciplinary proceedings against CT judges are exclusively regulated by the Act on the Status of CT Judges. Consequently, the Assembly had to draw lots to select the disciplinary court, which Judge Korwin-Piotrowska was then to notify of the suspension of the CT’s President and Vice-President.
The draw included 12 judges, including Korwin-Piotrowska herself. In the disciplinary proceedings concerning Bogdan Święczkowski, Stanisław Piotrowicz (a former PiS MP) was selected as the disciplinary prosecutor, yet the disciplinary panel consists exclusively of judges elected by the current Parliament. In the proceedings concerning Bartłomiej Sochański, the disciplinary prosecutor and two of the three judges on the disciplinary panel are appointees of the current Parliament.
The General Assembly concluded with Anna Korwin-Piotrowska informing the judges about motions submitted by the Prosecutor General, Waldemar Żurek, to lift the immunity of Bogdan Święczkowski and Bartłomiej Sochański. The General Assembly must examine these motions within one month.
What Next?
A continuation of Bogdan Święczkowski’s leadership of the Tribunal would have perpetuated the existing state of unlawfulness. The Polish authorities had an obligation to take appropriate measures to address this situation. However, the legality of Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska’s actions is debatable. On one hand, Scheppele, Pech and Kisilowski argue that the positions of President and Vice-President of the CT remained vacant and, consequently, the longest-serving judge was entitled to assume the duties of President without needing to invoke any specific legal basis. On the other hand, the existence of a legal basis for the actions taken has been doubted, and reliance on a “state of constitutional necessity” is widely seen as confirming the uncertainty surrounding that legal basis (Board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights). Finally, a third position, advanced by the former CT presidents, asserts that taking action was necessary and justified because it was the only way to end the constitutional crisis.
Regardless of the legal assessment of the actions taken, the question of their public perception remains, particularly the manner and timing of their implementation. These circumstances raise concerns: the events certainly undermined the remaining authority of the Constitutional Tribunal. However, an important and, in a sense, historic moment was the live broadcast of the General Assembly proceedings on 3 November, because it ensured full transparency of the judges’ decisions and, in particular, of the selection of the disciplinary panels in the cases of the suspended judges. Nonetheless, the situation is far from settled – the suspended judges do not accept the orders and are backed by President Nawrocki.
Andrzej Schultz is a PhD Researcher at the European University Institute in Florence and holds an LL.M. in European Union Law and Litigation from the University of Luxembourg.
Katarzyna Krzyżanowska holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, where she conducted research on the intra-judicial conflict within the Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Court during the constitutional crisis in Poland. Katarzyna is a former editor of the Review of Democracy.
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute
