What is at stake for Poland as President-PM fight spills out into the open?

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal has been at the centre of a long-running political and legal dispute over judicial appointments, with successive governments and political parties disagreeing over the court's composition and independence.

The dispute escalated this week following the suspension of Bogdan Swieczkowski, the president of the Constitutional Tribunal, amid growing tensions between Prime Minister Donald Tusk's coalition government and President Karol Nawrocki.

Swieczkowski, who was appointed to the court in 2022 during the rule of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, was suspended by another judge and barred by police from entering the tribunal building, prompting protests in Warsaw.

Tusk's government says the suspension is part of efforts to restore the rule of law and allow parliament-elected judges to carry out their duties. Nawrocki and opposition PiS politicians have challenged the decision, accusing the government of attempting to take control of the tribunal.

Nawrocki, who is aligned with PiS, was travelling to Senegal when he reportedly ordered his plane to return to Warsaw amid the escalating dispute

The dispute over Poland's Constitutional Tribunal has continued for more than a decade, with analysts suggesting that both political camps are using the issue to strengthen their positions ahead of next year's parliamentary election.

“This standoff is the most serious institutional confrontation in years with both sides treating each other as illegitimate,” Denys Kolesnyk, a Paris-based strategic intelligence consultant, tells TRT World.

“However, the real problem is that the issue around the Tribunal is being instrumentalised for the electoral matter, given that Poland will hold the elections next year.”

Kolesnyk says that while the two camps accuse each other of undermining the rule of law, “one thing that both sides are right about is that the court issue has been politicised for a decade”.

He adds that the continuing dispute is also damaging Poland's international image.

Poland is due to hold parliamentary elections in 2027, with Tusk's Civic Coalition facing PiS and other conservative parties. Civic Coalition was established as a political party in October 2025 following the merger of Civic Platform (PO), Modern (N.) and Polish Initiative (iPL).

Tusk, who served as president of the European Council between 2014 and 2019, has maintained close ties with the European Union, while Nawrocki and PiS have cultivated closer political relations with the US President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.

Matthew Bryza, a former US diplomat who served in Poland during its transition from communist rule to democracy between 1989 and 1991, also views the confrontation between Tusk and Nawrocki as a political dispute rather than one solely concerned with the rule of law.

The dispute over judicial appointments dates back to 2015, when PiS, led by Jarosław Kaczynski, came to power after defeating the Civic Platform-led government of then-prime minister Ewa Kopacz.

“The previous government had changed the rules for the parliament to appoint judges, and when the new government of Kaczynski came in, they reversed those changes and then blocked the appointment of some of the judges that the previous government had put in place,” Bryza tells TRT World.

Bryza also points to the shared political origins of the rival parties, noting that both Civic Platform and PiS emerged from Poland's anti-communist Solidarity movement.

He describes them as representing different wings of the movement, which played a central role in Poland's transition to democracy under Lech Wałęsa, the former trade union leader who became the country's president in 1990.

Is any resolution possible?

The dispute over Poland's Constitutional Tribunal has persisted for more than a decade, with successive governments unable to reach a lasting compromise.

Tensions escalated again in October amid disagreements over the appointment of judges to the court, ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for 2027.

“Some argue that the president of Poland must invite the judge before the judge can take his seat on the tribunal, but the judge took his oath anyway, despite there not being an invitation from the president to do so,” Bryza tells TRT World.

According to Bryza, disagreements over the appointment of new judges have repeatedly brought the dispute back into focus.

“It will never go away until there's some definitive political decision that resolves what is a legal constitutional dispute the constitution doesn't provide an answer to,” he says.

“I expect this legal dispute that’s wrapped in politics to continue to rattle on for years unless or until there's a big political push where the people of Poland say we've had enough of this. Maybe it will require a constitutional referendum. It's not clear to me how this gets resolved,” he adds.

Kolesnyk also sees little prospect of a resolution in the short term, suggesting that the dispute could continue until the next parliamentary election.

“I do not expect an immediate solution, the issue will most likely be protracted all the way to the 2027 elections and settled at the ballot box,” he tells TRT World.

“In the meantime the president would keep vetoing legislation while the government would govern around him.”

TRT World / Murat Sofuoglu — TRT World