Poland | Poland: Crisis of the Republic

In the past few days, the conflict over the Constitutional Court, which has been simmering for a decade, has erupted in protests. Photo: AFP/Wojtek Radwanski The now heated conflict over the Constitutional Court in Poland has been simmering for over ten years. In the eyes of large parts of the Polish public, the two main political forces of the last decades are primarily responsible for the unprecedented state of affairs, as the body politic has long been incapacitated - the national conservatives led by Jarosław Kaczyński and the civic liberals led by Donald Tusk.

Filling the coveted judges' positions in the 15-member panel repeatedly resulted in a power struggle rather than being an expression of the higher art of political compromise. Now the civil-liberal side has probably broken the Gordian knot with the backing of its own government majority. She also felt compelled to do so because the EU Court of Justice has been demanding a solution for many months that would restore the blocked separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

The leading liberal weekly "Polityka" headlines that the national conservatives have lost the constitutional court, but the storm of indignation on the right-wing opposition side is more than just a hard nut to crack. The current events surrounding the Constitutional Court are now a welcome opportunity for the right-wing opposition to demonstrate their own strength and reaffirm their claim to regain government power by next fall at the latest.

However, this would now require all right-wing forces to come together, because Kaczyński's National Democrats have lost their dominant role in the right-wing arc. In the meantime, they have to enter into an alliance with anti-EU libertarians and identitarians as well as radical nationalists.

Nevertheless, they appear confident of victory and are happy to flex their muscles in the fight for the Constitutional Court. Just like Przemysław Czarnek, who according to Kaczyński's stipulations is to become the next national-conservative prime minister, who is now openly threatening: Prime Minister Tusk is treating the Polish state like his own front yard; For the violation of the legal order and the attack on the Constitutional Court, the government members involved soon went to prison!

The right-wing opposition parties are unanimous in drawing a clear line in their assault against the Tusk government: Poland's separation of powers is decided by the sovereign in Poland, but not in Strasbourg, in Brussels, nor in Berlin. Here a deeper line in the current conflict becomes more visible, because the national democratic promise to work towards reducing the EU into a loose association of sovereign nation states has now become a tangible threat.

If the pressure from Brussels becomes too strong, Kaczyński recently said, the option of leaving the EU should even be considered. The far right has long been calling for a withdrawal from the Schengen agreement in order to regain national control over state borders.

Another significant difference between the civil-liberal government camp and the right-wing opposition lies in the constitutional question. The government camp stands firmly by the current constitution from 1997, while the right-wing opposition favors a new constitution. The main argument is apparently “European,” as the existing constitution was adopted in a referendum before Poland became a member of the EU in 2004. What I mean is that, without appropriate interpretation, the constitutional text only offers insufficient protection of national sovereignty against inadmissible interventions or even encroachments by Brussels.

This is where Kaczyński's statement comes in: the Constitutional Court, which was attacked by the Tusk government, is a bastion of the defense of national sovereignty and must remain so. President Karol Nawrocki had only called for a referendum to be held in May on whether Poland should remain a parliamentary republic or become a presidential republic, because the existing dual power between the seat of government and the presidential palace must be dissolved.

The last three direct elections for the highest state office – in 2015, 2020 and 2025 – went in favor of the national conservatives.

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