Recent days have seen Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk thrust into the international spotlight after what’s been widely dubbed a forced takeover of what’s supposed to be an independent top court, the Constitutional Tribunal.
Another key official, Poland’s Supreme Court First President Zbigniew Kapiński, has joined the growing chorus of those condemning Tusk’s actions as tantamount to orchestrating a coup d’état.
“These actions bear the hallmarks of a coup d’état,“ Kapiński declared Monday, in reference to the chaotic events kicked into motion Friday night.
According to more of Kapiński’s remarks as quoted in The Hungarian Conservative:
Kapiński insisted that Bogdan Święczkowski remained the legitimate president of the Tribunal and warned that the government could attempt a similar takeover of the Supreme Court itself. Appointed to his current position by President Karol Nawrocki in May, he argued that nothing comparable had happened since the introduction of martial law in communist Poland.
The Supreme Court chief has also convened an extraordinary General Assembly of judges for Tuesday, 3 November, to discuss threats to Poland’s constitutional order and adopt an official position on the crisis.
When The Economist notes that democracy is being blown up…
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal is supposed to embody democratic stability, but has spent the past decade as a battleground for fights between populists and liberals. The latest conflict looks like a full-blown constitutional crisis.
