Poland’s President Forces His Way Into the Constitutional Court
Judges elected by the current parliamentary majority moved to suspend the Constitutional Tribunal’s president and vice-president and take procedural control of the court. Riot police were deployed in Warsaw, three people were detained, and the head of state turned his plane around mid-flight, pushed through the police cordon after midnight and was still inside the building at four in the morning.
Whether any of this is lawful is genuinely unsettled, and experts are deeply divided, so this edition reports the split rather than adjudicating it. Separately from the suspension, the justice minister has asked for the two men’s immunity to be lifted so criminal charges can be brought. The judge placed in temporary charge is one of five the president has refused to swear in, which is the legitimacy problem in miniature. The prime minister, who returned promising to undo his predecessors’ reshaping of the courts, called it a duty: “After years of Law and Justice’s lawlessness, this is a difficult, sometimes painful process that requires decisive action. There is no other way.” The tribunal’s own account is that those involved are “committing the crime of a coup d’etat”. The sharpest verdict comes from a law professor who is no friend of the suspended president, calling the legal basis “non-existent” and warning that the day “buries this body and the issue of the rule of law for two decades”. European courts have twice found the tribunal improperly constituted. Elections come next year.