Polish president returns home as court chief suspended amid judiciary dispute

Polish President Karol Nawrocki turned his plane around on October 30, 2026, and flew back to Warsaw during a crisis over the country's top court. He had been travelling to Senegal when news broke that the Constitutional Tribunal's president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, had been suspended. Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the court's longest-serving judge, suspended him and took control of the tribunal. Nawrocki said on X that the president must be in Poland at such a moment. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the tribunal that evening. Police entered the building after some protesters threw objects at officers, and three people were detained. Opposition politicians, including PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government of staging a coup against the court.