Poland's constitutional court has been functionally dead for over a decade — captured by the Law and Justice (PiS) party during its eight-year rule, declared illegitimate by European tribunals, and left paralysed by procedural warfare. Donald Tusk returned to office in 2023 with a mandate to fix this. He has now chosen the messy path. On Friday, government-backed judges attempted to seize procedural control of the tribunal, suspending the PiS-appointed chief judge and deputy. This triggered street protests, riot police deployments, and President Karol Nawrocki — an opposition-aligned figure — physically forcing his way into the court building. In a Saturday night television address, Tusk was unapologetic: "In certain matters, there can be no compromise." The core problem is structural. Nawrocki has refused to swear in five judges approved by parliament, effectively vetoing Tusk's judicial reset from the presidential palace. The constitution gives the president extensive blocking power, and PiS used its years in government to stack institutions with loyalists who now function as procedural landmines. Tusk's coalition faces a choice between accepting a permanently broken court or forcing the issue through legally ambiguous means. Tusk's framing is maximalist. He compared PiS to a handbag thief screaming about violence when caught. He pointed to former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev joining the opposition's outcry as evidence of where the real threat lies. The Russia card is not subtle, but it lands in a country where the security environment makes such connections feel less like rhetoric and more like threat assessment. The legal ground is genuinely uncertain. Poland's Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights — not a PiS-aligned body — called the suspension's legal basis "questionable" and warned it would "not contribute" to restoring the court. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski conceded the events were "not elegant" but argued the alternative was Poland's transformation into a presidential republic by default. This is the classic democratic restoration paradox: can you fix institutions broken by illiberal actors using only the tools those actors left intact? Tusk is betting that the answer is no, and that history will judge the restoration more kindly than the original capture. The opposition is betting that procedural violations by the other side retroactively legitimate their own. The stakes sharpen with next year's parliamentary election. Polls show a tight race between Tusk's coalition and the nationalist right. Every move at the court is now simultaneously a legal manoeuvre and a campaign signal. Nawrocki's aide called Tusk "a pathological liar, who is setting Poland ablaze." The temperature will not come down.
