Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said he will send the president’s office a copy of the Polish Constitution with four provisions marked: those on the separation of powers, the limits of the president’s authority, the independence of courts and tribunals, and the fact that the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, elects Constitutional Tribunal judges.
– The Tribunal is for citizens, not for usurpers who try to bring politics into the law, not for those who hand down rulings on political order, but for independent, impartial judges, Żurek stressed in a video posted Wednesday evening on the social media platform X.
Last Friday evening, representatives of the group of judges elected to the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) by the current term of the Sejm announced that Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, as the longest-serving judge, had become the acting head of the Tribunal. They said she had issued an order for a break in the duties of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański.
A protest in front of the Tribunal’s headquarters then intensified. President Karol Nawrocki cut short a trip to Senegal and returned to Warsaw late Friday night. He met with, among others, Supreme Court First President Zbigniew Kapiński, and then went to the Tribunal’s headquarters. Early Saturday, the president issued a statement saying, among other things, that “there was a violation of Poland’s constitutional order and a forcible seizure of a constitutional organ of the state.”
In the Wednesday video, Minister Żurek referred to those events, saying that “in recent days we have watched scandalous scenes.” – The president of Poland, who is supposed to be the guardian of the constitution, brutally burst into the Tribunal building and brutally and boorishly pushed aside the Tribunal judges who were standing there, Żurek said.
– The judges wanted to talk to the president, but the president used the method of soccer hooligans’ organized brawls. But the office of the president of Poland is not a fan brawl, and the Tribunal is not a stadium, Żurek stressed.
He said that “the law of the Republic will not be decided by pincers, gate-cutting machines, nighttime assaults on a side gate, or physical scuffles with judges.” – This is unacceptable. The Tribunal is a separate judicial power, independent of the other branches of government. The president does not understand the principle of the separation of powers. His actions show the methods by which he exercises his office today. Not through conversation, not through conciliation, but through brute force. That is not acceptable, the justice minister said.
On Tuesday, Żurek said that a total of six motions to lift Święczkowski’s immunity and one to lift Sochański’s immunity had been submitted to the Tribunal. The motions to lift Święczkowski’s immunity concern, among other things, cases involving the Pegasus and Hermes systems, preventing Tribunal judges from performing their duties, and seconding prosecutors contrary to regulations while Święczkowski served as national prosecutor.
– We will not give up on restoring the rule of law. Citizens have the right to an independent, impartial constitutional court, and Mr. Święczkowski must stand before an independent court. He cannot decide about himself. It is other Tribunal judges, at a lawful assembly, who should decide whether he should continue to hide behind immunity or should stand before an independent court, Żurek said.
Addressing the president in the video, the justice minister noted that the president is supposed to watch over the constitution and compliance with it. – That is why I will send the president’s office a copy of the Polish Constitution with four provisions marked: Article 10 on the separation of powers, Article 126 on the limits of your authority, Article 173 on the independence of courts and tribunals from your office, and Article 194, which clearly states that Constitutional Tribunal judges are elected by the Sejm, the minister said.
President Nawrocki emphasized the issue of the judiciary and the recent events surrounding the Tribunal at Tuesday’s meeting of the National Security Council, whose main topic was to have been a permanent U.S. base in Poland.
– However, the actions of the government, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, last Friday mean that we are meeting today in unprecedented circumstances, in a situation of serious constitutional crisis, and so we cannot pass by indifferent today, Nawrocki said, opening Tuesday’s meeting of the Council.
The president also said that “full responsibility for this entire situation, for every police officer outside the Tribunal, for all the illegal actions such as the suspension of judges, the illegal orders, the entry into the Tribunal from the side of the prime minister’s office, lies with one man (…) Prime Minister Donald Tusk.”
Nawrocki also said that he does not understand or accept the prime minister’s actions and opposes them. – The rule of law cannot be restored by methods that themselves flagrantly violate the law, the president said. (PAP)
