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Friday night’s confrontation at Poland’s Constitutional Court, which drew riot police and protesters and prompted President Karol Nawrocki to turn his plane around and return to Warsaw, reignited a bitter debate over whether Prime Minister Donald Tusk is restoring the rule of law or overstepping constitutional boundaries.
The dispute erupted after the court announced the suspension of its president, Bogdan Święczkowski, a move that supporters of the Tusk government called necessary to restore judicial independence, while critics denounced it as an unconstitutional power grab.
Marcin Przydacz, head of the International Policy Bureau in Nawrocki’s office, denounced Tusk’s actions on European television on Monday morning, saying: “Even lawyers close to the Tusk government say there is absolutely no legal basis for such behavior. »
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Donald Tusk, Polish Prime Minister, during the Polish army parade in Warsaw, August 15, 2025. (Damian Lemanski/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The conflict also has diplomatic repercussions, with at least three Polish ambassadors resigning in protest. Przydacz, a former lawmaker from the now opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, said Poland’s permanent representative to the UN since 2021, Krzysztof Szczerski, resigned on Monday, following the resignations over the weekend of ambassadors to China and Romania.
“This crisis did not start on Friday,” said Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, senior envoy for Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Poland has lived for more than a decade with a deeply compromised Constitutional Court.”
Rodan-Benzaquen said the confrontation cannot be understood in isolation. Parliament continued to appoint judges in accordance with the Polish constitution, but several of these appointments were blocked due to a years-long impasse between the government, the presidency and the court itself.
Presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party, second from right, greets his supporters at his headquarters after the presidential election runoff in Warsaw, Poland, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
“This is not just a case of Tusk deciding to create an independent, functioning court before an election,” Rodan-Benzaquen told Fox News Digital. “There is a real institutional crisis that predates his government, and the legitimate question of how to resolve it arises.”
This underlying conflict exploded into the public eye on Friday after Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska suspended Święczkowski and his deputy, sparking protests outside the court and prompting Nawrocki to abandon his trip to Senegal. Police arrested three people after protesters clashed with officers outside the court complex.
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Rodan-Benzaquen warned that concerns over Friday’s actions are not limited to opposition supporters, saying they “raise serious questions about the legality and proportionality of the methods used.”
Government critics called Friday’s events an unprecedented attack on Poland’s constitutional order. “My former boss, Margaret Thatcher, would have been absolutely appalled by what we are seeing in Poland,” Nile Gardner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. “This is clearly a crisis for Poland and a coup attempt by Donald Tusk.”
“This has all the hallmarks of a Soviet-style coup operation,” added Gardner, who said Tusk had waited for Nawrocki to leave the country, accusing the prime minister of weakening the court and further destabilizing Poland ahead of next year’s elections. “That’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a third world dictator.”
Protesters gather in front of the headquarters of the Polish Constitutional Court in Warsaw after police blocked access to the court building, October 30, 2026. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images)
Others reject the characterization of a coup d’état. Boštjan Udovič, president of international relations at the University of Ljubljana, says the dispute is over the government’s attempt to restore a justice system that critics of the previous PiS government say was incompatible with both the Polish constitution and European legal standards.
“Tusk wants to restore the situation as required by the Constitution and international institutions,” Udovič said. “I think he was hoping the transition would be easier.”
Tusk defended his government’s actions as part of an effort to restore the rule of law, accusing both the president and the court of inappropriately preventing judges elected by Parliament from taking office. “The solution to the conflict is simple,” he said Monday. “The president recognizes judges legally elected by (Parliament), because that is what the Constitution stipulates.” He accused Nawrocki of having “chosen a forced confrontation, which could cost Poland dearly. A democratic rule of law cannot give in to violence.”
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“The restoration of the rule of law is essential,” says Rodan-Benzaquen, warning against a purely partisan view of the conflict. “But the legitimacy of this restoration depends not only on its objectives, but also on the legality of the means used to achieve them.”
Divisions in Poland are increasingly reflected abroad, with European institutions and political leaders offering very different interpretations of the crisis.
Protesters gather outside Poland’s highest court as tensions between President Karol Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government escalate. (PA)
The European Commission has largely supported the power of the Polish Parliament to appoint judges. European Commissioner Michael McGrath said the selection of new judges falls within the powers of the Polish Parliament.
French opposition leader Marine Le Pen, for her part, accused Brussels of applying double standards. “We cannot claim to defend democracy and the rule of law while remaining silent when the constitutional balance of a member state is seriously threatened,” she posted on X. “The proliferation of such heavy-handed tactics within the European Union itself is beginning to raise serious questions.”
“America is on Poland’s side,” U.S. Ambassador to Poland Tom Rose said on X, calling for restraint. “Our concern is for the stability, security and democratic future of a country we are proud to call our friend and ally…Poland has gone too far and accomplished too much to let political differences, however strong, put all that at risk.”
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Police were deployed outside the Constitutional Court after Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, elected by Parliament in March 2026, issued an order suspending Court President Bogdan Swieczkowski and Vice President Bartlomiej Sochanski from their posts for a month. (Kai Taller/Arena Akcji/Sipa USA)
For Rodan-Benzaquen, the larger problem extends well beyond Friday night’s events. “One party claims to defend the constitutional order against the abuses of the other, while the institutions that should arbitrate the dispute have themselves become the object of the dispute,” she said.
With Poland’s parliamentary elections just a year away, the battle over who defines the rule of law could prove more consequential than this weekend’s showdown.
Calling Tusk’s tactic “straight out of the Putin playbook,” Gardner warns that Poland is currently in “an incredibly dangerous situation, and the fault lies squarely with Donald Tusk and his government.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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