At about 9 p.m. Friday, protesters cut a chain on the gate outside the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) building in Warsaw. Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński entered the grounds.
Święczkowski arrived at the building on Szucha Avenue after Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska ordered a break in his duties and in those of Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański. The Tribunal president spoke with police and showed his ID, but was not let into the building. Police stressed that they were acting only outside the building, at the request of an authorized person.
Ultimately, Święczkowski withdrew from the Tribunal grounds. “We are not going to fight the police here, we will return with the president,” he said.
Earlier, police detained three people who got past the Tribunal’s fence. A demonstration took place outside the building throughout the evening, attended by PiS politicians including Antoni Macierewicz.
Harsh Words From the Opposition
Kaczyński wrote on X: “As of today, Poland is becoming a police state.” Former President Andrzej Duda said that Donald Tusk and his people “have today also shown themselves to be a thuggish rabble that carried out a brutal assault on a constitutional organ of the state.” “They don’t know how to win lawfully, on democratic principles, so they use the truncheon,” he added.
Piotr Duda, chairman of the Solidarity trade union, who appeared outside the Tribunal, addressed the prime minister: “Tusk, you wanted war? Then you’ll have it!”
President Karol Nawrocki, who cut short a flight to Senegal, has landed in Warsaw. A meeting is under way at the Presidential Palace with Święczkowski and Supreme Court First President Zbigniew Kapiński. A General Assembly of Tribunal judges has been called for Tuesday, Nov. 3.
