What to know about the crisis around Poland's Constitutional Tribunal

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Judges at Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal are meeting Tuesday to decide its future, following the suspension of the court president in a dispute with the government and a battle over the future of the rule of law.

Protesters have gathered daily outside the court in Warsaw since the suspension of the tribunal’s top judge, Bogdan Święczkowski, who was appointed under the nationalist-conservative PiS party when it was in power 2015-2023.

The pro-European government of Donald Tusk accuses Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with PiS, of blocking judges elected by the parliamentary majority from taking up their posts at the tribunal.

Święczkowski has called his suspension a “coup d’etat.”

On Friday, riot police encircled the building while the most senior of the newly elected judges announced Święczkowski's suspension from inside.

Nawrocki, who was on a visit to Senegal, turned his plane around to return to Warsaw, joining the protesters outside the tribunal.

Here's what to know.

The current crisis around the Constitutional Tribunal is the latest round in a long-term battle between the pro-European government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the main opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), which seeks to return to power in elections next year.

Critics in Poland and the European Union accuse PiS, which led the country between 2015 and 2023, of imposing political control over key judicial institutions, including the Constitutional Tribunal. The European Union fined Poland for undermining the rule of law.

Tusk’s government came to power in 2023 promising to restore the independence of the judiciary, but its efforts have been blocked by two successive PiS-aligned presidents, including Nawrocki.

After repeated failed attempts to wrest control of the tribunal from PiS, the government decided to take a less orthodox path, one that Tusk himself said might not be to everyone’s liking.

Judges on the Constitutional Tribunal are elected by Parliament and sworn in by the president. In mid-October, parliament elected another judge, meaning judges not friendly to PiS would have a majority, but Nawrocki refused to swear in the new appointment.

The judges elected this year took an oath anyway during a ceremony in parliament, a move recognized by the government camp but rejected by PiS. On Friday, the new appointees entered the tribunal premises while riot police guarded the building.

One of the new judges, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, published the notice of suspension for Święczkowski, the tribunal president, on the court's website. She argued that she had the authority to do so because she is the most senior judge on the court and that he had allegedly committed irregularities while in office.

Many legal experts, as well as the European Commission and the EU's top court, agree that reforms to the justice system introduced by PiS while in power were highly problematic. In 2023 the EU Court of Justice ruled that the Polish Constitutional Tribunal was no longer an impartial court after PiS appointments.

Tusk’s camp and PiS accuse each other of breaking Polish law, including the Constitution.

“Restoring the rule of law is our obligation,” Tusk wrote on X on Friday evening. “After years of lawlessness under PiS this is a difficult process, sometimes painful and it requires decisive action. There is no other way.”

“This is a blatant, criminal attack on the constitutional order,” former PiS Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, the architect of the reforms criticized by the European Union, wrote on X Friday evening. “That is why I call for resistance that will be loud, firm, united and fearless.”

But while human rights campaigners back the principle of reversing the PiS changes, some have criticized the methods.

“The legal basis for the suspension are doubtful and the presence of the police on the tribunal grounds caused a strong escalation of political emotions on both sides,” said Maciej Nowicki of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland. “Those emotions might bury any hope for finding a solution to the crisis.”

A complete “reset” of the Constitutional Tribunal, involving the appointment of an entirely new bench under revised rules, could be necessary, he said.

Anna Korwin-Piotrowska called a general assembly of the Constitutional Tribunal judges for Nov. 3, to decide on the future of the court but also potentially on Święczkowski's immunity. That could potentially pave the way for the court president's criminal prosecution.

But it is unlikely the assembly will reach decisions that all sides accept. Judges chosen by the post-2023 parliamentary majority do not recognize the legitimacy of some judges appointed under PiS, while PiS takes the opposite view.

Decisions require a quorum, but the government and PiS disagree over which judges are eligible to vote and what constitutes a quorum. Some judges appointed under PiS may not even show up for the meeting on Tuesday in protest.

The current crisis is unlikely to be resolved on Tuesday

The functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal had already been impaired for years. Trust in judicial institutions has been eroded both by political conflicts around the courts and the daily inefficiencies of an overburdened judiciary.

In that sense, the current crisis will not suddenly make things worse for regular Poles.

But the Constitutional Tribunal makes decisions that are consequential. A ruling by this court in 2020 led to further restrictions on Polish women's access to legal abortions. The tribunal is needed to curb potentially illegal government decisions, Nowicki said.

Ensuring the Constitutional Tribunal operates well and independently of political power remains a key objective for Polish society.

The current crisis will also intensify the already high political polarization in Poland, one year ahead of general elections. In turn, that will make it much harder to achieve the kind of consensus needed to really fix the court.

Suspended President of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal Bogdan Swieczkowski, left, speak to police officers during a protest in front of the Constitutional Court in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Beata Zawrzel)

Demonstrators pray during a protest in front of the Polish Constitutional Court in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Beata Zawrzel)

Demonstrators speak to police officers during a protest in front of the Polish Constitutional Court in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Beata Zawrzel)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa voters will choose their next governor in Tuesday's midterm elections, deciding between Democrat Rob Sand and Republican Zach Lahn in a race that could end conservative dominance across state government.

Sand and Lahn both campaigned on criticisms of the state’s status quo, including a deepening budget deficit, an increasing cost of living, dwindling health care access, high cancer rates and water pollution. But they offered voters starkly different visions for replacing Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who decided not to run again.

Sand is the face of his party's hopes for restoring Democratic leadership, despite his efforts to keep his distance from partisan politics. He's built his candidacy around his anti-corruption agenda as state auditor and his small-town upbringing. He won his last election by a razor-thin margin — fewer than 3,000 votes — but he has outperformed other Democrats in previous races, especially in rural areas.

Lahn is a newcomer to Iowa politics who generated buzz from grassroots activists and supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “ Make America Healthy Again ” movement. He won the Republican primary over a congressman endorsed by President Donald Trump.

The open race — in a midterm when Republicans face national headwinds — revived Iowa's status as battleground territory even though Democrats are outnumbered among party-affiliated registered voters.

In a sign of the campaign's competitiveness, many of Iowa’s prominent industry groups in agriculture and business declined to weigh in on the contest, endorsing in other contests but not the governor’s race.

Sand, 44, often laments the way the country's political system forces people to pick sides, even as he has only run for office as a Democrat and has donated substantially to the party. He acknowledged he’d likely have to work with Republican majorities in the state House and Senate, saying divided government would be good for solving problems.

Throughout his campaign, he criticized Republicans for ignoring a worsening budget deficit that’s emerged from their tax cuts and investment in education savings accounts, which provide students with public dollars to pay for private school tuition.

He said he’d also be a check on Republican efforts to push culture war bills from the Statehouse, such as further limits on abortion or restrictions on how teachers discuss certain topics.

Sand has worked for years to build a visible — and likable — public profile in the state by holding annual county town halls, publicizing his findings as a former state prosecutor and as auditor and being active on social media. That included posting about what he’s eating around the state, nodding at his northeast Iowa roots and sharing his bowhunting escapades.

A first-time candidate who was little-known when he began running for governor, Lahn’s general election campaign was scaled up quickly after his surprise victory in the June primary.

Lahn, 40, won the primary by less than a percentage point over U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, who had Trump's backing. Still, in a five-way race, he prevailed with only about a third of Republican primary voters supporting him.

Before launching his campaign for governor last November, Lahn had worked on launching innovative schools, including one in Wichita, Kansas, funded by Chase Koch, the son of Koch chairman and co-CEO Charles Koch. Lahn also previously worked in Montana for the Koch-based conservative political organization Americans for Prosperity.

In Iowa, Lahn owns an investment company and has revived the eastern Iowa farm that had been in his family for a century.

Lahn was still relatively unknown to even members of his own party when he won the primary, and some were hesitant to get behind him. He was not shy about pushing back on traditional Iowa GOP positions and said he had already been successful in changing the narrative within the Republican Party.

He campaigned on bringing antitrust lawsuits against agricultural conglomerates, questioning the health and safety of products used by farmers and reducing incentives for out-of-state companies buying farmland.

Still, toe-to-toe with Sand in debates, Lahn leaned on traditional party positions in contrasting himself with Sand, saying Sand would be a liberal governor who would raise taxes, increase regulations and push a political agenda in public education.

Lahn criticized Sand for the millions of dollars that his wife and in-laws have contributed to his campaign. Contrasting Sand with himself as a first-time candidate, Lahn called Sand a career politician. Sand was a prosecutor under a Democratic state attorney general before running for auditor in 2018.

Sand played up Lahn's background as a conservative political operative. Sand also hit Lahn for only recently returning to live in Iowa, registering to vote two years ago just before the deadline to run as a candidate in this election and traveling regularly out of the state.

Lahn has explained his frequent flights to Kansas as a result of his blended family, which he says won't affect his ability to govern. Lahn and his wife, Annie, both have children from previous marriages who do not live full-time in Iowa.

Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn arrives to speak during a campaign rally at the Five Flags Event Center, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Dubuque, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand speaks to supporters during a canvass launch, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Ankeny, Iowa. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn speaks to reporters during a campaign event at Shotgun Betty's bar, Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, in West Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand speaks during a union rally, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, in Ankeny, Iowa. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)