A prosecutor from the National Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday opened an “investigation into the assault on Constitutional Tribunal judges Anna Korwin-Piotrowska and Krystian Markiewicz,” the spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General, Prosecutor Anna Adamiak, announced.
According to a statement published on the National Prosecutor’s Office website, the investigation also covers an “attempt to use force and unlawful threats to influence the official actions of the Constitutional Tribunal.”
The proceedings “concern an incident that took place on the night of Oct. 30-31, 2026, on the premises of the Constitutional Tribunal’s headquarters.”
Adamiak said that, according to preliminary findings, “several people, acting jointly and in concert, rushed at judges Anna Korwin-Piotrowska and Krystian Markiewicz, then forcibly pushed them away from the entrance to the Tribunal building, violating their physical inviolability.” The Prosecutor General’s spokeswoman said these people then “burst into the building with the intent of using force and unlawful threats to influence the official actions” of the Tribunal.
Adamiak said these people “did not achieve their intended goal in the face of the firm stance of Tribunal judges Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, Magdalena Bentkowska, Sławomir Patyra, Krystian Markiewicz, Maciej Berek, Marcin Dziurda and Maciej Taborowski.” “In the end, these people left the Constitutional Tribunal building,” she added.
“The investigation was opened ex officio, after an analysis of media reports, including recordings documenting the incident, and official memos drawn up by public officials,” Adamiak said.
The Prosecutor General’s spokeswoman also said the investigation was opened by a prosecutor from a team of prosecutors within the National Prosecutor’s Office tasked with preventing the negative effects of the participation, in criminal, civil and administrative court proceedings, of judges appointed through a nomination procedure run by the National Council of the Judiciary as constituted after 2017.
On Friday evening, representatives of the group chosen by the current Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, as Constitutional Tribunal judges announced that Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, as the longest-serving judge, had become the head of the Tribunal and had issued an order for a break in the duties of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański. Korwin-Piotrowska said that she and six other people chosen in this term as Tribunal judges were inside the Tribunal’s headquarters.
A protest outside the Tribunal, which had been going on for several weeks, then intensified. Święczkowski also arrived on Friday and declared that, as Tribunal president, he is the sole administrator of the Tribunal building and that “all decisions made by usurpers are unlawful from beginning to end.”
Because of the situation at the Tribunal, 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.
Recordings were published in the media showing President Nawrocki entering the Tribunal building and a dispute between the president’s representatives and the people chosen by the current Sejm as Tribunal judges. The sides give differing accounts of how the incident unfolded.
“I already view his (the president’s – PAP) entry into the Tribunal in criminal-law terms. It was a violation of the inviolability of the Tribunal building. His associates behaved with complete impunity inside the building, and I think prosecutors must draw consequences from this,” Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said on Sunday.
Berek said that “the president rushed at Judge Korwin-Piotrowska and began pushing his way through the group of other judges.” “I stress – no one grabbed or scuffled with the president,” he said.
The president’s spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, in turn said that the president’s inviolability was violated during the events at the Tribunal on the night from Friday to Saturday. “Ms. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska and Mr. Krystian Markiewicz, who blocked the entrance doors of the Constitutional Tribunal to the president and violated the head of state’s physical inviolability, are not Tribunal judges,” he said.
Leśkiewicz said the Chancellery of the President would file notifications with prosecutors over the violation of President Nawrocki’s inviolability. The Law and Justice (PiS) party announced a separate notification to prosecutors.
Since Monday, prosecutors have received several notifications in total concerning the events surrounding the Tribunal, including suspected an attack on a constitutional body, violations of the Tribunal judges’ inviolability and suspected assault on the president. (PAP)
