Polish president holds talks over constitutional court dispute

The president’s office said the separate meetings included Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, opposition Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński and Adrian Zandberg of the Razem party. Prime Minister Donald Tusk did not attend, according to the Associated Press.

The talks followed a disputed move against the tribunal’s leadership. On 30 October, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska signed an order calling for an immediate, month-long interruption of tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski’s duties. She said she was acting as head of the tribunal; Nawrocki and the existing court leadership dispute the legality of her action.

Nawrocki said the constitutional order had been violated and a state body forcibly taken over. Tusk’s government defended the suspension as necessary to restore judicial independence.

Korwin-Piotrowska is one of five judges elected by parliament whom Nawrocki refused to swear in. They took their oaths in parliament instead, but Święczkowski refused to admit them to the tribunal.

The dispute is part of a longer struggle over Poland’s judiciary. Critics in Poland and the EU accused PiS, which governed from 2015 to 2023, of bringing judicial institutions under political control. The EU’s top court found that the tribunal no longer met the standards of an impartial court following appointments under PiS.