Poland's president enters Constitutional Court as judicial standoff continues

Poland's President Karol Nawrocki entered the Constitutional Court in Warsaw on Friday evening, making his way through crowds of protesters and riot police. He had ordered his plane to turn back from a trip to Senegal. Adam Easton, the BBC's correspondent in Warsaw, reported that the president went to the court with the head of the Supreme Court and that hundreds of protesters were outside, with police in riot gear protecting the building.

The standoff is over who controls the Constitutional Court. The government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been trying to reverse judicial reforms made by the previous nationalist Law and Justice government. The pro-EU government suspended the court's top judge, an ally of Nawrocki. Easton, in an earlier broadcast, said the president cut short his trip abroad to show support for the court's top two justices, who had been suspended by the government. Law and Justice, now in opposition, accused Tusk of launching a coup.

Easton said the court matters because it can render legislation illegal by ruling it unconstitutional. Under the previous Law and Justice government, the court was accused of being politicised by loyal judges, and those judges remain in place. Top European courts, the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice, said the appointments had left the court no longer impartial or independent. Tusk's government stopped publishing its rulings, so it is not working effectively. Easton also said Nawrocki has refused to swear in five judges elected by parliament since March, making him partly the problem.

Stuart Dowell, political editor at TVP World, told BBC News the situation was a political and constitutional crisis. He said the Constitutional Court does not operate, and a democratic state needs an umpire to rule on whether laws are constitutional. The crisis has been going on since 2015, and Friday night was its latest iteration.

Dowell said sentiment research showed emotions were higher on the Conservative opposition right-wing side. He said the optics looked bad for the government: police were assembled before things started, under cover of darkness on a Friday evening, and the president's return from abroad was a surprise. If anyone benefits, he said, it is probably the president's side, the opposition.

Looking to the election next year, Dowell said all political actors were benefiting. Tusk came to power on a platform of restoring the rule of law but has not been able to do it, and this is a last-ditch chance for a rule of law win. Law and Justice is suffering in the polls and has split, with a more centrist branch breaking off, giving Tusk's side an opportunity to rally. The president wants to create an executive presidency with more authority running through the presidency. Ordinary Poles do not benefit, Dowell said, because the tribunal does not work.