Korwin-Piotrowska shuts the tribunal down: staff suspended, judges sent home, filings by post only, as Nawrocki brings the party leaders in for crisis talks

The day after she suspended the tribunal's two top judges, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska shut the building down. In an order published on the Constitutional Tribunal's website on Saturday, she revoked every authorization issued so far under the tribunal law, the authorizations Bogdan Swieczkowski had given, including the ones that decide who stands in for the president of the court.

She limited the work of the tribunal's chancellery and its legal service bureau, until further notice, to the tasks she assigns. She suspended the staff from their duties, including coming to work at the headquarters, except for staff she tells to come in, and the staff keep their pay. She told the judges to do their work outside the headquarters, citing safety, and said judges and staff called in must use the entrances named in her announcements, with hours for called in staff set case by case within the law. She closed the filing office and said filings must reach the tribunal by post. In the order she said she acted to restore the tribunal's proper functioning and because judges and staff could face threats to their health and lives.

Her Saturday order goes further than the one she issued on Friday, when she ordered a one month break in the duties of tribunal president Bogdan Swieczkowski and his deputy Bartlomiej Sochanski and took charge herself, as the judge with the longest service. Swieczkowski and President Karol Nawrocki answer that she is not a judge of the tribunal at all, because Nawrocki never received her oath and she took it in the Sejm instead. Before dawn on Saturday, Swieczkowski told the demonstrators outside the court: "You can seize a building by trickery, but you cannot seize a constitutional body of the state. The tribunal is made up of judges appointed according to the law, not usurpers who got in through a back gate in the company of government guards and ringed themselves with a police cordon out of fear of Poles."

On the street, PAP reported late on Saturday morning that police still stood in front of the tribunal but in far smaller numbers than overnight, a few officers at the gate and a dozen or so on the grounds, with Aleja Szucha still closed and people gathering slowly and chanting "Tu jest Polska," Poland is here.

The argument moved to the palace at midday. Nawrocki's chief of cabinet, Pawel Szefernaker, posted on X that the president would begin a series of meetings with the leaders of the parliamentary groups at the Presidential Palace from 1 p.m. on Saturday, and the palace confirmed the schedule. Confederation deputy Sejm speaker Krzysztof Bosak confirmed he would take part, writing that he would join talks on restoring constitutional order in the state. Szymon Holownia said his Polska 2050 club will attend. Holownia called the night a shame for Poland, said the tribunal needs urgent repair but not by force, and called on Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk to meet the same day and agree on a reset of the tribunal. Razem spokesman Mateusz Merta said Razem representatives will meet the president after 3 p.m. and that his party stands ready to talk with the president, the prime minister and every group about an urgent constitutional reset and an end to the fight over the tribunal. Deputy Sejm Speaker Marcin Horala called an extraordinary sitting of the Council of Parliamentarians to the President for 3 p.m. Horala had already called the events at the tribunal a forcible attack and a breaking of the law.

No statement from the European Commission had appeared by late morning. Inside the court, the next dated step is the general assembly of the tribunal's judges that Korwin-Piotrowska called for Tuesday, November 3. Until then the building on Aleja Szucha stands empty under her order, its staff sent home and its filing office closed, while the party leaders go to the president's palace to argue over who runs Poland's top court.