Polish President Cuts Short Senegal Trip as Top Court Chief Suspended
Poland's president returned home abruptly after a judicial shake-up at the Constitutional Tribunal deepened the long-running dispute over control of the country's courts.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki abruptly cut short a trip to Senegal on Friday and returned to Poland after a far-right ally was suspended as head of the country's Constitutional Tribunal, intensifying a years-long struggle with Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government over control of the judiciary.
The tribunal said earlier in the day that its longest-serving judge, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, had suspended its president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and taken charge of the court. Swieczkowski was appointed under the previous nationalist government. In a post on X, Nawrocki said the moment demanded his presence at home, announcing that he was ending his flight to Senegal and turning back.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the tribunal late on Friday under a heavy police presence, where right-wing politicians accused Tusk's government of carrying out a coup against the court. The dispute has long paralysed the institution, with the pro-European government and the nationalist president refusing to recognise appointees put forward by the other side.
Tusk said on X that his government was working to restore the rule of law, a standard the European Union had accused his Law and Justice predecessors of undermining. He described the process as difficult and at times painful, but said it required decisive action.
The conflict traces back to 2015, when Law and Justice sought to appoint judges to seats already filled by the previous government. Its nominees secured a majority on the tribunal, and critics at home and abroad argued the court no longer met the standards of an independent and impartial body. After Tusk's coalition took office in 2023 it pledged to reform the court, but Nawrocki, a Law and Justice ally elected president in 2025, has moved to block those efforts.
The standoff has drawn attention across Europe as a test of how a member state balances judicial independence with political accountability. With the tribunal's leadership now in dispute and the president back in Warsaw, the confrontation between the two branches of government appears set to continue.
