Bogdan Święczkowski appeared outside the Constitutional Tribunal on Sunday morning. “I am the president of the Constitutional Tribunal. No one has dismissed me from this post,” he told those gathered. He announced that he will come to the Tribunal every day.
The night from Saturday to Sunday outside the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) passed calmly. According to PAP journalists who were on the scene and observed the events, there were no incidents or police intervention.
On Sunday, shortly after 8:30 a.m., Bogdan Święczkowski appeared outside the Constitutional Tribunal and demanded to be let into the building. “I am the president of the Constitutional Tribunal. No one has dismissed me from this post, and no one can dismiss me. It was a decision of the President of the Republic of Poland,” he said to the people gathered there.
Święczkowski called on police officers to let him into the building and not to “take part in the criminal actions of the usurpers” who are inside. “Do not listen to Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who is not a judge of an ordinary court and has never been a judge of the TK. All the actions being carried out by this lady are illegal, and you are taking part in illegal actions,” Święczkowski said.
He also announced that he will come to the Constitutional Tribunal every day.
The crisis at the TK began after news emerged on Friday afternoon of an order for a break in the duties of TK President Bogdan Święczkowski and TK Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański. Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, as the judge with the longest judicial service, was announced as the person leading the TK.
In connection with the situation at the Constitutional Tribunal, President Karol Nawrocki held a series of meetings on Saturday with the leaders of parliamentary groups. The president was offered, among other things, a “reset” of the Tribunal, and the concept of creating a technocratic government was also presented to him. In the evening, Prime Minister Donald Tusk delivered an address to the nation in which he ruled out a compromise on the Constitutional Tribunal.
On Saturday evening, an order from Supreme Court (SN) First President Zbigniew Kapiński was also published on the court’s website, convening a General Assembly of SN Judges on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 2 p.m. 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 governed by 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 noted that, because of the “extraordinary nature of the circumstances,” the seven-day notice period for the meeting required by law was not observed. (PAP)
