On 3 November 2026, judges of Poland’s Constitutional Court met in a Warsaw to a plenary session, during which a Disciplinary Commission was appointed to examine disciplinary proceedings against the suspended court president, Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy. The meeting followed a controversial suspension which had led to protests outside the court building in the preceding days and further heightened tensions between the government, the president and parts of the tribunal.
According to consistent reports, the initiative came from judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska , who rightly provisionally took charge of the court over the weekend and ordered the suspensions. At the 3 November assembly, the judges present decided to establish a commission for matters relating to judicial service and also to discuss the court’s budget for the coming year. Several media outlets report that some judges appointed under the previous government boycotted the meeting in protest.
The latest development is the culmination of a long-running dispute over the composition and functioning of the Constitutional Court. Since 2015, the court’s composition has been the source of conflict between the national-conservative Law and Justice party and forces committed to the rule of law; the disputes continued politically after changes of government. The current government, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk , has repeatedly said it wants to restore judicial independence, while opposition forces and some members of the previous bench denounce the removal of judges who were protégés of the former government as unconstitutional.
The central legal question is whether Święczkowski’s suspension is constitutionally permissible and whether the measures put in place by Korwin-Piotrowska comply with the tribunal’s internal rules of procedure. Representatives of the European Union and human rights organisations are closely monitoring developments; previous rulings by the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights had already criticised aspects of Poland’s judicial reforms.
The consequences remain unclear: if the disciplinary commission proceeds with a case against the suspended president, this is likely to further fuel political polarisation in Poland and lead to both domestic protests and diplomatic reactions. Statements by the government, the president and the judges involved should be treated explicitly as attributed claims.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).