The rot in Poland’s highest court finally burst into the open on Friday night, and the tear gas over Warsaw tasted like 2015 all over again. President Karol Nawrocki ordered his presidential jet to turn around over the Mediterranean, aborting a state visit to Senegal, as riot police and baton-wielding protesters turned the streets around the Constitutional Tribunal into a battle zone. The trigger: the government’s suspension of the tribunal’s president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy — the latest and most explosive salvo in a war over the rule of law that has paralysed the institution for years.
A Palace Coup or a Reckoning?
It depends entirely on which side of the barricades you stand. For Donald Tusk’s coalition, Friday’s move was surgical necessity — the excision of a cancer that has metastasised since the Law and Justice (PiS) party packed the courts with loyalists during its eight years in power. Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek didn’t mince words. He told reporters the request to lift the immunities of Święczkowski and his deputy was rooted in their “persistent failure to discharge their duties” — specifically, their refusal to allow judges elected by the current parliamentary majority to take their seats.
The tribunal’s own website confirmed the suspensions with bureaucratic sterility. But outside, the reality was anything but sterile.
PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, the grey cardinal of Polish politics, emerged from the shadows to declare a “coup d’état.” His language was deliberate, calculated to inflame. And it worked. By nightfall, hundreds of PiS supporters had massed outside the tribunal building on Ujazdów Avenue. They threw bottles, flares, and chunks of paving stone at lines of riot police. The officers responded with water cannon and tear gas. The air thickened with acrid smoke and the metallic tang of adrenaline.
Nawrocki, a PiS ally elected president only months ago, made his calculation at 30,000 feet. “At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland,” he posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning.” The presidential chancellery confirmed the aircraft — a Polish Air Force Boeing 737 — executed a U-turn over Algeria. It landed in Warsaw shortly after midnight.
The Long Shadow of 2015
This didn’t start Friday. It started the day PiS took power in November 2015 and began its systematic capture of the judiciary. They passed laws forcing Supreme Court judges into early retirement. They created a disciplinary chamber to punish magistrates who defied the party line. They stacked the Constitutional Tribunal with loyalists — “doubles,” critics called them, appointed to seats that weren’t technically vacant.
The European Commission triggered Article 7 proceedings. The European Court of Justice issued ruling after ruling. Billions in EU cohesion funds were frozen. PiS called it sovereignty. Brussels called it backsliding.
When Tusk returned to power in December 2023, he promised to “repair” the rule of law. But repair requires demolition first. And demolition makes dust.
Nawrocki’s refusal to swear in three judges nominated by the Sejm earlier this year was the first clear signal: the president would not be a rubber stamp. Święczkowski’s parallel refusal to admit the new judges was the second. The tribunal — designed to be the ultimate arbiter of constitutionality — became a tomb. Cases piled up. Rulings stalled. The institution simply stopped functioning.
The Calculus of Confrontation
Tusk’s government knew what Friday would bring. They knew Kaczyński would cry coup. They knew the streets would burn. They did it anyway.
“Restoring the rule of law is our obligation,” Tusk wrote on X Friday evening, his tone grim. “After years of lawlessness under PiS this is a difficult process, sometimes painful and it requires decisive action. There is no other way.”
The phrase “no other way” is the language of men who have run out of patience. But it is also the language of men who may have miscalculated. PiS remains the single largest party in parliament. Its voters are loyal, organised, and convinced — not without reason — that the current government is using the same extra-legal tools PiS once perfected.
The criminal charges against Święczkowski and his deputy are unprecedented. Lifting judicial immunity requires a vote in the Sejm. Tusk has the numbers. But every vote deepens the trench.
A Nation Held Hostage
Warsaw woke Saturday to a city on edge. The tribunal building remains cordoned. Police vans idle at intersections. The presidential palace is under heightened security. In cafés across Śródmieście, people stare at phones, refreshing feeds, waiting for the next escalation.
The Senegal trip was supposed to signal Poland’s return to serious diplomacy — energy deals, security cooperation, a pivot to the Global South. Instead, the president’s jet burned fuel in circles over the Sahara while his capital choked on tear gas.
The symbolism is not lost on anyone.
Why it Matters
Poland is not just another EU member state teetering on the edge of authoritarianism — it is the eastern flank of NATO, the logistical heart of Western support for Ukraine, and the largest economy in Central Europe. If its constitutional order collapses into open conflict, the shockwaves hit Kyiv, Berlin, and Washington simultaneously. Tusk’s gamble is that the pain of surgical removal now prevents the death of the patient later. Kaczyński’s bet is that the patient will reject the surgeon. The streets of Warsaw will decide who wins — and the verdict may come not in courtrooms, but in the next election, or the next confrontation.
