The oath in the Sejm

On Wednesday, 14 October, Maciej Berek, a former government minister, took an oath of office in the Sejm during a ceremony led by Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty, despite objections from President Karol Nawrocki. The Sejm had elected Berek to the Constitutional Tribunal on 4 September. He is the eighth person the current Sejm has elected to the Tribunal and the fifth whose oath the president has not accepted. Nawrocki did not attend the Sejm ceremony. Berek spoke the oath in the form addressed "before the president", then put it in writing with a notarised signature at the Chancellery of the President.

Inside the Tribunal building

Berek then travelled with other Sejm-elected judges to the Tribunal, where he met its president, Bogdan Święczkowski. Święczkowski later said Berek had not entered into a service relationship and would not be admitted to adjudicate until the president gives an opinion on his oath. Niezależna reported that the judges were not admitted to the part of the building reserved for judges, and that Berek and the others left after several hours. Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska told Onet that Święczkowski had allegedly grabbed Berek to stop him entering the closed area of the Tribunal. Waldemar Żurek told Onet that proceedings concerning Święczkowski's conduct already exist, and that prosecutors would have to expand the evidence if such accusations were made. Święczkowski rejected reports of force used inside the building, calling them a lie. He argued that under the Constitution and the law on the status of judges, a judge is chosen by the Sejm and must take the oath before the president.

Clashes outside the building

Outside, protesters from Ruch Obrony Granic (ROG) and Gazeta Polska clubs scuffled with police in front of the Tribunal and tried to block its entrance. Among the protesters were Robert Bąkiewicz, leader of ROG, Tomasz Sakiewicz, editor-in-chief of TV Republika, and PiS MPs including Antoni Macierewicz. Niezależna reported that police forcibly removed the protesters, that some were roughed up, and that the head of the Warsaw Gazeta Polska club went to hospital for tests. Later, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński addressed the crowd and said the demonstration was legal and that there were no grounds to ban it. He described the use of force against the Tribunal as part of what could, in a broad sense, be called an attempted change of the system by force.

What is being done at the moment is outside any constitutional and legal order, and these are simply actions of a criminal nature.

Government and prosecutors respond

Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that the judges had been chosen lawfully, in line with the constitution and good custom. He accused the president of abdicating his constitutional duties by refusing to take their oaths, and said the government would restore legal order by the methods available to the state, step by step. Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek instructed National Prosecutor Dariusz Korneluk to start procedural actions ex officio and a criminal assessment of what he called unlawful actions, citing article 13 of the Prosecutor's Act. He named Robert Bąkiewicz and his people in the instruction, writing on X:

Today's attempt to paralyse the work of the Constitutional Tribunal by Robert Bąkiewicz and his people will meet a decisive response.

Nawrocki responded with a single sentence while hosting the president of Montenegro at the Presidential Palace during the clashes, according to naTemat.

I do not know who Minister Berek took the oath before, but certainly not before the President of the Republic of Poland.

Representatives of the ruling majority argue that the president, by deliberately and persistently blocking the oath, paralysed the institution and broke his constitutional duty. They cite legal experts and recommendations from international bodies, including the Venice Commission.

A stalemate over the Tribunal

naTemat described the dispute as a stalemate in which both sides hold to their own legal readings and give voters contradictory interpretations. The Tribunal's president has tied Berek's admission to adjudicate to the president's opinion on the oath, and that opinion had not been issued in the reports. The sequence of Sejm-elected judges is summarised in the chart below.