Poland’s Top Court Cries ‘Coup’ as Riot Police Ring the Building and a Government-Backed Judge Suspends Its President

News | By Matt, Editor

Riot police surrounded Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw on Friday evening. Hours earlier, a judge backed by Donald Tusk’s governing coalition had suspended the court’s president, and the court itself called the move a coup d’état. President Karol Nawrocki turned his plane round on the way to Senegal and was outside the court by midnight UK time, as crowds of protesters gathered. (GB News; Reuters)

Nigel Farage called the situation “very serious”. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss called it a “shocking assault on democracy in Poland”. Earlier this year Nawrocki vetoed Brussels’ online censorship law, and he is now at the centre of a constitutional showdown with Tusk’s government.

Key facts

• The suspension: Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska ordered a one-month break in duties for Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański. She was elected by the current Sejm in March and took over as the longest-serving judge. (Rzeczpospolita)
• The police: Warsaw police said they acted on letters from the Prosecutor General and a Tribunal judge warning of threats. Officers entered the grounds but, police said, not the building. Objects were thrown at them and three people were detained for climbing the fence. (@Policja_KSP; Reuters)
• The prosecutions: Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said he had filed five motions, 224 pages long, to lift the immunity of Święczkowski and Sochański. (@w_zurek)
• The court’s response: it said Korwin-Piotrowska “is not a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal”. It also said everyone taking part had committed “the crime of a coup d’état”. (@TK_GOV_PL)

How Friday unfolded

Police appeared in the court’s grounds late on Friday afternoon. Soon afterwards the Tribunal’s website published the suspension order. Judge Sławomir Patyra set out the reasons. He said Święczkowski had blocked a General Assembly needed to pass the court’s 2027 budget and handed out cases arbitrarily. He also said Święczkowski had refused, since 9 April, to admit judges chosen by parliament, despite a European Court of Human Rights order of 5 May. (Rzeczpospolita)

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The court’s official account hit back within half an hour, saying its website had been “unlawfully taken over”.

Nastąpiło bezprawne przejęcie strony internetowej Trybunału Konstytucyjnego.

Prezesem @TK_GOV_PL jest nadal Bogdan Święczkowski, a Wiceprezesem Bartłomiej Sochański.

Pani Anna Korwin-Piotrowska nie jest sędzią Trybunału Konstytucyjnego.

Wszystkie osoby uczestniczące w…

— Trybunał Konstytucyjny (@TK_GOV_PL) October 30, 2026

Rzeczpospolita’s live coverage reported that Święczkowski was refused entry and tried to open a gate. He asked whether anyone had a crowbar, then told supporters: “We will not fight the police, we will come back with the President.” Jarosław Kaczyński, Mateusz Morawiecki and Krzysztof Bosak joined the crowd outside.

Watch: riot police at the court

There is chaos at Poland's constitutional court tonight as a group of government-backed judges moved to take control from the opposition-aligned chief justice.

Riot police have surrounded the court and were seen preventing the chief justice from entering https://t.co/xpkp3sjPFn

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 30, 2026

The President turns his plane round

Nawrocki was flying to Dakar for the Youth Olympic Games. “At a moment like this the President must be in Poland,” he posted. “I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am coming back.”

W takim momencie Prezydent musi być w Polsce. Przerywam lot do Senegalu. Wracam 🇵🇱

— Karol Nawrocki (@NawrockiKn) October 30, 2026

After landing he met Święczkowski and the First President of the Supreme Court, Zbigniew Kapiński. Shortly before 1am Warsaw time he arrived at the Tribunal with Kapiński and, his chief of staff Paweł Szefernaker said, got inside. Footage published by Onet shows him in the building telling Korwin-Piotrowska and Judges Krystian Markiewicz and Maciej Berek: “You are not judges of the Tribunal.” Berek, one of the judges chosen by the current Sejm, accused the President of barging into Korwin-Piotrowska and pushing through the group of judges. The President’s spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, said the judges had violated the head of state’s personal inviolability. (Rzeczpospolita; DW)

In a statement issued overnight, Nawrocki said there had been “a violation of the constitutional order and the forcible takeover of a constitutional organ of the state”. He said Kapiński also did not recognise as lawful the actions of “persons usurping power” at the court, and called urgent talks with the parliamentary parties for Saturday. Poland’s ambassador to Romania, Paweł Soloch, resigned in protest. (@prezydentpl; Rzeczpospolita; our translation)

Oświadczenie Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej Karola Nawrockiego

Tej nocy doszło do naruszenia porządku konstytucyjnego RP i siłowego przejęcia konstytucyjnego organu państwa. Odbyłem konsultacje z Pierwszym Prezesem Sądu Najwyższego Zbigniewem Kapińskim, który również nie… pic.twitter.com/GjcUJG8kE2

— Kancelaria Prezydenta RP (@prezydentpl) October 31, 2026

Reaction: “The situation in Poland is very serious”

Farage wrote: “Arrests and a raid on the constitutional court – all to defend the undemocratic EU.” He was quoting a post Tusk made on Friday afternoon, before the police arrived: “Either you vote them out in a year’s time, or they will take us out of the European Union.” (Our translation.)

The situation in Poland is very serious.

Arrests and a raid on the constitutional court – all to defend the undemocratic EU. https://t.co/0FhCUS0udn

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) October 30, 2026

PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński said in a video that Poland was witnessing a “creeping coup d’état” that “began just before Christmas 2023 with the takeover of public television”, in his party’s English translation. (@pisorgpl) Former President Andrzej Duda called Tusk’s camp a “bandit rabble” who “use the truncheon” because they “cannot win lawfully, by democratic rules”. Sławomir Mentzen asked Nawrocki to call the National Security Council that night, saying: “We are on the threshold of a coup d’état.”

Supreme Court chief Kapiński said police must not be “a tool for carrying out the political will of those currently in power”, adding: “The authority of the state is built by obeying the law, not by a show of force.” (@SN_RP_) Even the liberal law professor Marcin Matczak, a fierce critic of Święczkowski, told Rzeczpospolita there was no legal basis for suspending him.

US ambassador Tom Rose called it an “unprecedented confrontation over the government’s use of state power”, while saying it was not America’s place to interfere. (@USAmbPoland)

Tusk was unrepentant. “Restoring the rule of law is our duty,” he posted. “After years of PiS lawlessness it is a difficult, sometimes painful process and requires decisive action. There is no other way.” (@donaldtusk) His chief of staff, Jan Grabiec, said the real coup was blocking the new judges from taking their oaths.

What happens next

A General Assembly of the Tribunal has been called for Tuesday 3 November. The two camps do not even agree on who sits on the court. Nawrocki has refused to swear in three of the six judges parliament put forward. Five judges, Korwin-Piotrowska and Berek among them, took their oaths in the Sejm instead. (Reuters)

Tusk’s camp points to an EU Court of Justice ruling of 18 December 2025. It found the Tribunal was not “an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law”, because of how three judges were appointed in 2015 and its president in 2016. (CJEU, C-448/23)

Our view

This section is opinion.

Poland’s courts were a mess long before Friday, and both sides share the blame. But a government that answers a legal dispute with riot police, criminal motions and a midnight standoff with an elected President is not “restoring the rule of law”. It is replacing one set of judges with its own.

Brussels spent years lecturing Warsaw when Law and Justice was in charge. Now its favourite prime minister tells voters the choice is his side or leaving the EU, and its own court ruling gives him cover. Watch how quietly the Commission reacts. It is a useful lesson for Britain, where Andy Burnham wants us back in the EU and judges in Strasbourg already block our deportations. Courts built by Europe do not stay neutral for long.

FAQ

What is Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal?

It is the 15-judge court that rules on whether Polish laws are constitutional. It sits on Aleja Szucha in central Warsaw.

Who is Bogdan Święczkowski?

A former national prosecutor, he became the Tribunal’s president in December 2024, appointed by then-President Andrzej Duda. The government wants him prosecuted. His supporters say he is the court’s lawful head.

Were police inside the building?

Warsaw police said no, only in the grounds and the street outside. Reuters reported that officers “entered the premises” after objects were thrown.

Sources

• GB News, Marcus Donaldson and Peter Stevens, 30 October 2026: Poland’s top court claims ‘coup d’etat’ as riot police deployed
• Reuters, via The Straits Times, 31 October 2026: Polish president turns back from Senegal trip as top court chief suspended
• Rzeczpospolita: TK, policja i Święczkowski. Co dzieje się w Trybunale Konstytucyjnym?, plus its live coverage, 30–31 October 2026; Polsat News
• DW, 31 October 2026: Poland: Protesters clash with police over sacked court chief; Onet video
• Court of Justice of the EU: Commission v Poland, C-448/23, 18 December 2025
• X: @TK_GOV_PL; @NawrockiKn; @donaldtusk; @donaldtusk (13:03); @Nigel_Farage; @trussliz; @w_zurek; @Policja_KSP; @SN_RP_; @pisorgpl; @AndrzejDuda; @SlawomirMentzen; @USAmbPoland; @prezydentpl; @notesfrompoland
• Main image: the seat of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, Warsaw, January 2016. Photo: Adrian Grycuk / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 PL.