Poland is undergoing a major constitutional crisis. To gain a better understanding of the situation, I spoke directly with my friends and legal contacts in the country. Here is a summary of the crisis.

To understand the major crisis facing the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, we must go back to 2015. It all began in 2015, when the outgoing liberal majority in Parliament (the Sejm) decided to elect five new judges to the Polish Constitutional Tribunal. However, these positions were not scheduled to become vacant until after the October 25, 2015, elections—three in November and two in December. The purpose of this election was to appoint as many judges as possible to the Constitutional Tribunal before the new conservative majority took office. It was carried out in violation of the principle that only vacant positions may be filled, and that such appointments must be made by the majority in Parliament at that time.

After the October 25, 2015, elections, the new conservative-majority Parliament—even before the five newly elected judges had taken their oaths of office before the President of the Republic—adopted a resolution annulling the election of those five judges and elected five others. These five new judges, in turn, took their oaths of office before Poland’s conservative President.

To become a constitutional judge in Poland, one must be elected by Parliament (by a simple majority) and then take the oath of office before the President of the Republic.

However, the Constitutional Tribunal (CT), which was still liberal-leaning at the time, ruled on December 3, 2015, that only the two judges elected by the previous liberal Parliament to fill the seats set to become vacant in December had been elected in violation of the Constitution. Consequently, according to the Tribunal, three “liberal” judges elected in November were to take the oath of office and assume their duties.

In fact, the resolution of the dispute depended on the date of the new Parliament’s first session, the date on which the former Parliament’s term officially ended. The five seats were to become vacant after the elections, meaning that the former Parliament no longer had the political legitimacy to fill them. However, the new conservative majority did not convene the new Parliament until after the terms of three judges had expired. Consequently, the Constitutional Court ruled that the election of these three judges by the former majority was valid, unlike that of the other two judges, whose terms did not end until after the new Parliament had been convened.

Nevertheless, the President of the Republic agreed to administer the oath of office to the five new judges elected by the conservatives, just before the Constitutional Tribunal issued its ruling validating the other three. These five judges had therefore already been sworn in and had become judges, whose removal had become impossible.

Thus began the Polish saga of the three “duplicate judges” (doubler-judges). The Constitutional Tribunal found itself with three too many (or duplicate) judges out of the 15 who make up the court. During the eight years of the conservative government, Parliament had time to replace all the previously appointed judges.

Thus, following the conservative camp’s Pyrrhic victory in the 2023 general election—since, despite winning the election, it was unable to secure a governing majority—a liberal government was formed by Donald Tusk. Consequently, the main liberal party, despite not having won the election, was able to form a coalition.

Restoring the Rule of Law by Violating It

The new liberal government, led by Donald Tusk, has declared that it will restore the rule of law—that is, resolve Poland’s institutional crisis and comply with EU law. However, to achieve this, it intends to apply the law “as it understands it”—in Prime Minister Tusk’s own words—which amounts to declaring that it intends to restore the rule of law by violating it, in order to impose a new political regime on Poland.

Neither the European Union nor the Council of Europe appears to have detected any threats to the rule of law since he came to power in December 2023. On the contrary, the European Union has released and paid Poland the tens of billions of euros it had refused to pay under the previous government.

In 2023, the liberal coalition believed that, since it had succeeded in taking control of Parliament, it would also win the presidential election by direct popular vote, scheduled for early June 2025—just eighteen months after the 2023 change in government. That is why the liberal majority had ignored former President Duda at the time, anticipating their victory in the 2025 presidential election, which was expected to grant them full control of the government.

They came very close to achieving their goal but were defeated. In the end, a conservative, Karol Nawrocki, was elected President of the Republic, ushering in a period of cohabitation. Karol Nawrocki was elected by an absolute majority and through universal suffrage, whereas Donald Tusk leads “only” a coalition government of minority parties.

Bolstered by this legitimacy, Karol Nawrocki is much more resolute than his predecessor and determined to defend the integrity of the Polish Constitution and to oppose Tusk’s government. Consequently, every political offensive by the government is met with a vigorous response on his part. He uses his constitutional power of veto against legislative bills much more frequently than was previously the case. The political struggle is intense.

This context is essential for understanding the current situation.

Since 2023, the new liberal majority in Parliament has had the opportunity to elect new constitutional judges. However, for a long time, it did not do so, as it intended to delegitimize the Constitutional Tribunal by portraying it as a politicized and irregularly composed institution. It therefore did not want to contribute to legitimizing the Tribunal by having its own judges elected to it. It sought to paralyze the Constitutional Tribunal. In 2025, it notably cut the budget appropriations allocated to judges’ salaries, in the hope that the Court would no longer be able to rule in plenary session due to a lack of a sufficient number of judges.

Tusk’s Majority Appoints Six Judges at Once

Finally, two years behind schedule, Tusk’s majority decided to appoint six judges at once, even though each judge holds an individual term, the start date of which depends on the expiration of their predecessor’s term. These six judges were elected by parliament.

However, the President of the Republic, Karol Nawrocki, swore in only two of them, arguing that only two judicial positions had become vacant during his term as President, and that he was unsure whether he could swear in judges appointed to fill positions that had become vacant before he took office. He referred this matter to the Constitutional Court, which was itself unable to resolve it. Subsequently, a seventh judge was elected and accepted by President Nawrocki, who administered the oath of office to her.

At the end of September 2026, Maciej Berek was in turn elected as a judge (the eighth). However, he was Prime Minister Tusk’s “right-hand man” and a member of his government. He is highly politicized. Donald Tusk chose him on the grounds that he would be best able to restore order within the Constitutional Court.

This appointment sparked intense controversy. Indeed, the liberals had pledged to no longer appoint political figures to the Court. Yet this candidate is precisely one of the most politically aligned figures imaginable and could place the Constitutional Court under the government’s control. Serious doubts also arose regarding his compliance with the formal requirements for election as a judge to the Constitutional Court. In fact, he could not provide proof of ten years of professional experience as a lawyer.

President Nawrocki suspended the swearing-in procedure, pending receipt of proof of Maciej Berek’s required qualifications. In response, Parliament confirmed Berek’s election without providing such proof.

Consequently, crowds began to gather in front of the Constitutional Tribunal to protect the court from the Tusk government.

There are therefore currently eight newly elected judges, three of whom have been sworn in and five who have not. These five are elected judges but have not yet taken office: they are not authorized to exercise judicial functions.

Given the President’s stance, the Speaker of the Sejm (the lower house of Parliament) personally organized a “swearing-in” ceremony for the judges before him, following a procedure not provided for by law, since they could not be sworn in before the President. The government maintains that this swearing-in was valid, a claim contested by the opposition.

The Forced Entry on October 31

What took place on the evening of Friday, October 31, was a full-scale operation to forcibly enter the Constitutional Court building in order to install the seven new “judges” by force.

The operation was timed to take place at a particularly opportune moment: the President of the Constitutional Court was on an official visit to the Serbian Constitutional Court; the President of the Republic was on an official visit to several African countries (he turned back while flying over Spain); and the entire population was preparing for All Saints’ Day, a time when many Poles travel to pay their respects at the graves of their loved ones, often outside Warsaw.

The President of the Republic turned back to return immediately to the Constitutional Tribunal and oppose this maneuver. Upon his arrival, he was jostled by law enforcement officers who had attempted to prevent him from entering.

One of the seven “judges” who entered the premises, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, suspended Bogdan Święczkowski, the president of the Constitutional Tribunal, from exercising his judicial functions. She signed an order declaring herself interim president of the Tribunal.

The organizers of this coup then expressed their intention to bring criminal charges against the “deposed” President of the Constitutional Court, Bogdan Święczkowski.

To this end, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska—acting as interim president—convened a general assembly of the judges of the Constitutional Court, scheduled to meet on November 3, 2026. This general assembly would bring together all the new judges and exclude Bogdan Święczkowski as well as the court’s vice president, ensuring that the “new judges” hold an absolute majority and thereby bringing the Constitutional Court into line with the government.