In Poland, Minister Żurek will send President Nawrocki the Constitution — RMF24

In Poland, Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said he would deliver to the office of President Karol Nawrocki a copy of the Constitution with four articles marked, RMF24 reports. These concern provisions on the separation of powers, the limits of the president’s powers, the independence of courts and tribunals, and the election of Constitutional Tribunal judges by the Sejm.

Żurek’s statements on events near the tribunal

In a video address on the X platform, Żurek criticized Nawrocki’s actions during the recent events surrounding the Constitutional Tribunal. The minister said that the president forced his way into the tribunal’s building and pushed aside judges standing near the entrance. According to him, the judges wanted to speak with the president.

The justice minister also said that the Constitutional Tribunal is an independent judicial authority and cannot be a venue for a forceful confrontation. He said that law in the country must not be determined by tools for cutting gates, nighttime assaults, or physical altercations with judges.

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.

Dispute over the tribunal’s leadership

Last Friday, representatives of a group of judges elected by the Sejm during its current term said that Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, as the most senior by length of service, had begun leading the Constitutional Tribunal. According to them, she issued an order to suspend the performance of the duties of tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski and vice president Bartłomiej Sochański.

Nawrocki then interrupted a trip to Senegal, returned to Warsaw late in the evening, met, among others, with First President of the Supreme Court Zbigniew Kapiński, and then arrived at the Constitutional Tribunal building. On the night before Saturday, the president stated that the constitutional order had been violated and that a constitutional state body had been forcibly seized.

On Tuesday, Żurek said that six motions to lift Święczkowski’s immunity and one motion concerning Sochański had been submitted to the tribunal. According to the minister, the motions concerning Święczkowski relate, among other things, to the Pegasus and Hermes systems, obstructing the work of judges, and seconding prosecutors contrary to the law during the period when he was national prosecutor. Nawrocki, for his part, placed responsibility for the situation on Prime Minister Donald Tusk and called the mentioned actions illegal.