Anna Korwin-Piotrowska told TVN24 that during the night-time entry into the Constitutional Tribunal (TK), President Karol Nawrocki pressed up against her and pushed his way through the judges. She said he exceeded his powers. She expects investigative authorities to clarify the matter and his entourage to release the recordings.
Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, a Constitutional Tribunal judge who took over leadership of the Tribunal as its longest-serving judge, recounted that on Friday night she went out to the Tribunal’s doors with other judges to greet the president, but his behavior indicated that he did not intend to stop in front of them.
– In a raised voice, he said the words: “The president is coming.” I understood that statement to mean that we should all step aside, she said. According to her, Nawrocki then pressed up against her and tried to push through. According to her account, Nawrocki shouted at the judges elected by the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, that they were not judges, while his entourage claimed he was looking for the keys to the office of the Tribunal’s vice president. Asked whether documents were being searched for, Korwin-Piotrowska replied: “I don’t know that.”
Referring to the Chancellery of the President’s announcement that it would notify prosecutors of a violation of his inviolability, Korwin-Piotrowska said she hoped the people accompanying Nawrocki would release all the recordings. She noted that several of them had recorded the events.
She also did not rule out filing her own notification in the matter. – I may file one, but not for some time, she said.
In her assessment, the office of president does not give the holder the right to enter courts and tribunals at will. She cited their constitutional independence.
(PAP)
Korwin-Piotrowska: Order Coming Monday on Drawing Disciplinary Panels for Święczkowski and Others
Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who is heading the Constitutional Tribunal, said that on Monday she will issue an order expanding the agenda of Tuesday’s General Assembly of TK Judges to include an item on drawing the panels of judges needed for disciplinary proceedings against Bogdan Święczkowski and Bartłomiej Sochański.
In an interview with TVN24 on Sunday, Korwin-Piotrowska said that in the order concerning a one-month break from official duties for TK President Bogdan Święczkowski and TK Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański, “the described allegations (regarding the work of Święczkowski and Sochański – PAP) must serve to initiate disciplinary proceedings against these judges.”
– At the end of disciplinary proceedings, in the case of the Constitutional Tribunal, there is always a disciplinary court. It is a three-member panel in the first instance and a five-member panel in the second instance, made up exclusively of Constitutional Tribunal judges, which I will draw by lot, Korwin-Piotrowska said.
She announced that on Monday she will issue an order expanding the agenda of Tuesday’s General Assembly of TK Judges to include an item on drawing the panels of judges needed for the disciplinary proceedings.
The purpose of the order, she argued, is to draw the judges “under conditions of absolute transparency, so that there can be no objections to the drawing.”
She added that within 30 days the disciplinary court “must consider, ex officio, the immediate break” from official duties for Święczkowski and Sochański. (PAP)
