An initiative on the situation in the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) must come from the man who broke it all, meaning Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the governing coalition and the Polish parliament, presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz said when asked what comes next for the Tribunal. He added that the proposal for a meeting between the president and politicians from the Civic Coalition (KO) remains open.
A crisis erupted at the Constitutional Tribunal on Friday after the announcement of a pause in the duties of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański. Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who was elected by the current Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, was recognized as the person running the Tribunal’s work. Tensions and demonstrations followed outside the Tribunal’s headquarters, and police arrived at the scene.
President Karol Nawrocki cut short a flight to Senegal and arrived at the Tribunal’s headquarters overnight from Friday to Saturday. After leaving the building, the president announced that he was calling urgent consultations with parliamentary forces, arguing that the constitutional order had been violated.
On Saturday, talks with representatives of some parliamentary caucuses and groups took place at the Presidential Palace. KO caucus chief Zbigniew Konwiński told PAP that he received a text message inviting him to meet with President Nawrocki at about 2:40 p.m. on Saturday. In response, he told the president’s staff that Andrzej Domański and Jan Grabiec had been authorized to represent the caucus. He said he later received no further reply from the president’s office.
Presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz addressed the situation at the Tribunal on Monday on Polsat News. He said the Chancellery of the President had planned meetings with the caucuses starting early Saturday morning. “We had no signal from Koalicja Obywatelska that they were ready to attend that meeting. So they did not come to the president’s meeting,” he said. “That proposal is still open,” he declared.
A meeting of the National Security Council (RBN) is scheduled for Tuesday. Bartosz Grodecki, head of the National Security Bureau (BBN), said it would address current national security issues and the construction of a permanent U.S. military base in Poland.
Leśkiewicz was also asked whether the RBN agenda would be expanded in light of the situation at the Tribunal.
“I can’t imagine us passing indifferently over what happened overnight from Friday to Saturday and talking only about a permanent U.S. troop presence. Although the second component is the question of security. What happened at the Tribunal also concerns the security of the Republic,” Leśkiewicz said.
In his view, the situation at the Constitutional Tribunal definitely needs to be repaired.
He noted that there are several key ideas, such as a reset or a referendum. “But the initiative, above all a concrete initiative, must come from the man who broke it all. That is, from Prime Minister Donald Tusk, from the governing coalition and from the Polish parliament,” Leśkiewicz said. “After all, the president cannot solve this problem alone right now,” he said.
A General Assembly of Supreme Court (SN) Judges has been convened for Tuesday by the court’s First President, Zbigniew Kapiński. The judges are to discuss “threats to the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland, in particular with regard to respect for the principle of a democratic state under the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and the proper functioning of the state’s constitutional bodies,” and adopt a resolution on the matter.
Kapiński said that, given the “extraordinary nature of the circumstances,” the seven-day notice period for the meeting required by law had not been observed.
Source: PAP
