Mark Balder

🇵🇱🇪🇺 Poland’s Constitutional Crisis: Before You Believe The Coup Narrative, Understand Who Changed The Rules I’m seeing people around the world sharing dramatic accusations about a coup in Poland. Most of them have absolutely no idea how this crisis started. So here’s what you need to understand. Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal is supposed to protect the Constitution. Think of it as a court that decides whether the government and parliament are acting within constitutional limits. It is not supposed to be an instrument of whichever political party happens to hold power. The trouble began in 2015, during a dispute over judicial appointments. The outgoing government made controversial appointments, but after PiS came to power, it rejected appointments that the Tribunal subsequently ruled were lawful and installed its own judges. The conflict expanded into years of battles over judicial independence, court appointments, and the rule of law. In 2023, Polish voters elected a new parliamentary majority, bringing Donald Tusk’s coalition into government. But changing the government did not automatically undo the institutional changes made under PiS. That’s the part people need to understand. Imagine a political party losing an election but leaving behind appointees who can obstruct the new government’s attempts to restore institutions. Now imagine the resulting confrontation being presented to the world as proof that the new government is overthrowing democracy. This is why the history matters. In 2026, President Karol Nawrocki refused to swear in several judges elected by parliament. Constitutional Tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski also refused to allow newly elected judges to take up their duties. On October 30, Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska announced the suspension of Święczkowski and his deputy. The court’s rival leadership rejected her authority. Nawrocki returned to Warsaw, PiS politicians accused Tusk of staging a coup, protesters gathered, and police were deployed. But an accusation of a coup is not proof of a coup. Tusk’s government argues that it is restoring constitutional order after years of unlawful interference with the judiciary. Nawrocki and PiS argue that the suspension itself violates constitutional order. The legality of these actions must be determined through the law, not by whichever politician shouts the loudest. And here’s the bigger question. When politicians claim to defend law and order, do they mean laws that apply equally to everyone, including themselves? Or do they mean protecting their own people and their own control over institutions? That’s the contradiction at the heart of this crisis. I grew up in communist Poland. I remember what political control over institutions looked like. That’s why I take the independence of courts seriously, regardless of which party is in government. Poland doesn’t belong to PiS. It doesn’t belong to Tusk. It doesn’t belong to Nawrocki. It belongs to its people! It belongs to the Polish people. And before anyone outside Poland shares another sensational post about a supposed coup, they should understand the decade of political and constitutional conflict that brought the country to this point. Law and order must mean the rule of law, not the rule of whichever party claims to own it.