The President’s Office will take steps to file complaints with prosecutors against Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, Maciej Berek and Krystian Markiewicz over, among other things, the violation of the inviolability of President Karol Nawrocki, presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz announced.
Overnight from Friday to Saturday, President Nawrocki cut short a flight to Senegal and arrived at the headquarters of the Constitutional Tribunal (TK). Media outlets published recordings showing him entering the Tribunal building and a dispute between the president’s representatives and people chosen by the current Sejm, the lower house of parliament, as Tribunal judges. The sides give differing accounts of how the incident unfolded.
In an interview Sunday with Radio Wnet, the president’s spokesman said the president’s inviolability was violated during the events at the Tribunal overnight from Friday to Saturday.
In his view, Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who is heading the Tribunal, and Tribunal judges chosen by the Sejm Maciej Berek and Krystian Markiewicz “had no right to touch the president.” He announced that the President’s Office “will take steps to file complaints with prosecutors” against them.
“Ms. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska and Mr. Krystian Markiewicz, who blocked the entrance doors to the Constitutional Tribunal against the president and violated the bodily inviolability of the head of state, are not Tribunal judges,” he said.
He said Nawrocki had the right to enter the Tribunal because “every citizen has the right to enter” it. “It is a public office, established so that citizens can handle their affairs there, and the president went in to find out what the actual situation at the Constitutional Tribunal looks like,” the spokesman argued.
He added that the “images” from the night from Friday to Saturday, including those on social media, are “dramatic.” “This is a ready-made indictment of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and it is an indictment of Mr. Markiewicz, Mr. Berek and Ms. Korwin-Piotrowska,” he said.
Leśkiewicz also responded to remarks by Korwin-Piotrowska, who, commenting on the events around the Tribunal overnight from Friday to Saturday, said that before entering the Tribunal the president had tried to ram her and other Tribunal judges chosen by the Sejm.
“This is how Ms. Korwin-Piotrowska is trying to build a line of defense. That is natural, because she will undoubtedly bear criminal responsibility for this conduct, as will Mr. Berek and Mr. Markiewicz,” he said.
The crisis at the Constitutional Tribunal began after the Tribunal’s website announced Friday a break in the duties of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański. Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, chosen by the current Sejm, was announced as the person heading the Tribunal’s work.
After leaving the Tribunal early Saturday, Nawrocki announced urgent consultations involving parliamentary forces, arguing that the constitutional order had been violated. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in turn, declared that “restoring the rule of law is our duty.”
On Saturday, talks with some representatives of parliamentary clubs and circles were held at the Presidential Palace.
In the evening, Prime Minister Donald Tusk delivered an address, in which he said, among other things, that “the attack on the Constitutional Tribunal and its judges is another stage in the process of destroying the rule of law in Poland by Law and Justice (PiS) and by Presidents Andrzej Duda and Karol Nawrocki,” and that “the state must be strong and capable of enforcing justice.” (PAP)
