A judicial coup in Warsaw? Police lock Poland's chief justice out of his court as President Norucki turns his plane around Poland's President Karol Norucki was flying to Senegal when he ordered the presidential plane to turn back over Spain: “At a moment like this, the president must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I'm coming back. "His plane has become the most followed flight on Flightradar24 and is scheduled to land in Warsaw at around 21:30. His chief of staff Pavel Schfranker says Noruki will meet with First Supreme Court President Zbigniew Kapinski as soon as he lands. What made him rush home? The police at the gates of the Supreme Constitutional Court in Poland, and its president was locked outside its building. To understand this, you need to know that Poland is ruled by two rival camps that refuse to recognize each other as having authority. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, former head of the European Council and favorite of Brussels, has led the government since the end of 2023. His coalition controls parliament. President Noruki, backed by the conservative opposition party PiS (Law and Justice), won the presidency in 2025. He holds the veto and must swear in judges. The Constitutional Court decides whether laws are constitutional. Most of its judges were appointed while PiS ruled between 2015 and 2023. The Tuskes government claims that PiS seized the court and refused to recognize many of its rulings. PiS says that the court is completely legitimate and that Tusk wants to seize it. This year Tusk's parliament elected new judges of the court. Noruki refused to swear in some of them, and the president of the court, Bogdan Schweichkovsky, refused to let them hear the cases. Since then the court has been paralyzed. Tusk camp passed tonight. Anna Korwin-Piotruska, one of the new judges Nawrocki was never sworn in, declared herself acting head of the court as the longest-serving judge and suspended Szwieczkowski and his deputy Bartlomiej Suchenski for one month.

A judicial coup in Warsaw? Police lock Poland's chief justice out of his court as President Norucki turns his plane around Poland's President Karol Norucki was flying to Senegal when he ordered the presidential plane to turn back over Spain: “At a moment like this, the president must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I'm coming back. "His plane has become the most followed flight on Flightradar24 and is scheduled to land in Warsaw at around 21:30. His chief of staff Pavel Schfranker says Noruki will meet with First Supreme Court President Zbigniew Kapinski as soon as he lands. What made him rush home? The police at the gates of the Supreme Constitutional Court in Poland, and its president was locked outside its building. To understand this, you need to know that Poland is ruled by two rival camps that refuse to recognize each other as having authority. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, former head of the European Council and favorite of Brussels, has led the government since the end of 2023. His coalition controls parliament. President Noruki, backed by the conservative opposition party PiS (Law and Justice), won the presidency in 2025. He holds the veto and must swear in judges. The Constitutional Court decides whether laws are constitutional. Most of its judges were appointed while PiS ruled between 2015 and 2023. The Tuskes government claims that PiS seized the court and refused to recognize many of its rulings. PiS says that the court is completely legitimate and that Tusk wants to seize it. This year Tusk's parliament elected new judges of the court. Noruki refused to swear in some of them, and the president of the court, Bogdan Schweichkovsky, refused to let them hear the cases. Since then the court has been paralyzed. Tusk camp passed tonight. Anna Korwin-Piotruska, one of the new judges Nawrocki was never sworn in, declared herself acting head of the court as the longest-serving judge and suspended Szwieczkowski and his deputy Bartlomiej Suchenski for one month.