President Karol Nawrocki cut short his flight to Senegal on Friday over events at the Constitutional Tribunal, Poland’s top constitutional court. At a moment like this, the president must be in Poland, he stressed.
President Nawrocki’s post appeared shortly after police arrived outside the Constitutional Tribunal and a notice was posted on the Tribunal’s website about an order interrupting the official duties of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański.
“At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am breaking off my flight to Senegal. I am coming back,” the president wrote. The president’s plane took off from Poland on Friday at about 2:50 p.m. and turned around over Spain shortly after 6 p.m.
The head of the president’s chancellery, Zbigniew Bogucki, stressed in his own post that the president “is the guarantor of the continuity of state power and watches over compliance with the Constitution.” Adam Andruszkiewicz, the chancellery’s deputy head, wrote that Nawrocki “will not allow the rule of law to be destroyed by force and Poles to be stripped of their basic democratic rights.”
At a press briefing on Friday, Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said he had submitted five motions to the Tribunal to lift immunity. Four of them seek consent to criminal prosecution of “acting Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski,” and the fifth seeks to lift the immunity of Tribunal Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk also responded to the events on X. “Restoring the rule of law is our duty. After years of lawlessness under Law and Justice (PiS), it is a difficult process, sometimes painful, and it requires decisive action. There is no other way,” he wrote.
On Saturday, Nawrocki was to take part in the opening of the fourth Summer Youth Olympic Games in Dakar and speak at the Sport and Development Summit. Talks with Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye were planned for Sunday. As Marcin Przydacz, head of the president’s International Policy Bureau, said before the departure, the visit was also meant to help secure African Union support for Poland’s membership in the G20. (PAP)
