The events in Warsaw on 30 October 2026 were real and serious, but they did not unfold as a police seizure ordered by the prime minister. Judges elected by the current Sejm moved to take control of the Constitutional Tribunal, and Onet reported that they announced the suspension of president Bogdan Święczkowski and the leadership of Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, the longest-serving judge. Judge Sławomir Patyra said the move was meant to restore the Tribunal's proper functioning. The Tribunal's own X account rejected the takeover, insisting that Święczkowski remained president and that participants were committing the crime of a coup d'état. That was an institutional power struggle among judges, not a police takeover of the court.
Rzeczpospolita's same-day reconstruction adds important sequence and detail. It reports that judge Korwin-Piotrowska filed a notification with police, that officers appeared on the Tribunal grounds between 17:00 and 18:00, and that just after 18:00 the Tribunal website published a one-month break in the official duties of both Święczkowski and Sochański under article 130 of the Law on the System of Common Courts. The stated grounds were that the two officials had blocked the proper convening of the General Assembly on the Tribunal's 2027 budget and had improperly assigned panels in cases now under a prosecution investigation. Polsat News carried the same communiqué and reported that the Tribunal website went down soon afterwards. This makes the old report's line that Sochański was merely refused entry incomplete: he was also suspended by a rival judge on the same day.
Police statements still define a narrower role than the post claims. Warsaw police said officers were carrying out statutory activities on the Tribunal grounds after a judge reported possible threats to the life or health of judges and staff and a risk of disruption to public order. A later police statement was explicit: there were no police officers inside the Tribunal building. Rzeczpospolita quotes a police spokesman saying officers were both in front of and behind the fence but not inside the building, and reporters saw police still only in front of the building after 20:00. The Associated Press reported that police secured the Tribunal as protests gathered and detained three people after some protesters breached the fence and threw objects at officers. WNP quoted Sochański saying the gate was closed from inside and that police on the grounds were equipped with shields and helmets, while Święczkowski told the crowd that a locksmith tried to force the gate on his instruction. The gate was closed from inside, and no source says police personally locked the court or barred Sochański.
The most consequential assertion, that Tusk's government ordered the operation, has no support in the available reporting. Police cited a Tribunal judge's notification and a letter from the Prosecutor General asking for attention to the Tribunal's security, not a directive from the prime minister. The AP recorded Tusk writing that restoring the rule of law was his government's obligation, and former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro calling the events a criminal attack, but those political statements do not establish an operational police order. The AP also reported that President Karol Nawrocki turned his flight to Senegal back because of the crisis. Earlier reporting from Onet, Polskie Radio 24, Do Rzeczy and Polsat News had already established that police denied being inside the building, and a former police officer told Polsat News that officers did not politically take over the Tribunal but only entered the area. Deutsche Welle's background from 16 October explains the long political battle over the court without showing that Tusk ordered a police seizure. The central framing is not supported, so the verdict remains misleading even though the confrontation, the police deployment and Sochański's inability to enter were real.
