The president of the Constitutional Tribunal Bogdan Święczkowski reported last Wednesday that Deputy lawyer General Michał Ostrowski, after his notice, initiated an investigation into the suspicion of a coup by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, marshals: the Sejm and the Senate, the head of the Government Legislative Centre and any judges and prosecutors.
National Prosecutor Dariusz Korneluk said on Monday that lawyer General Adam Bodnar twice asked Proc. Ostrowski to issue papers related to the investigation into the "state attack". He stressed that PG had set a deadline for Ostrowski to issue papers by this Monday.
Prok. Adamiak told PAP that on Monday the papers were submitted to the PG secretariat at 3 advancement Street in Warsaw.
According to the president of the Constitutional Tribunal, what is the “state coup”?
According to the president of the Constitutional Tribunal, the crime is that as of 13 December 2023 these persons have been acting "in an organized criminal group", with the aim of "changing the constitutional strategy of the Republic of Poland and acting to accomplish or cease the activities of the Constitutional Tribunal and another constitutional bodies, including the National Court registry and the National Court of Justice".
On Thursday, Proc. Adamiak informed that according to the findings of the prosecutor's office, on 3 February, a TK worker came personally to the office of the National Prosecutor's Office and then lodged a closed envelope at the office of deputy PG Michał Ostrowski. On Thursday, the PG secretariat received a letter from the Procs. Ostrowski informing of the initiation of the procedure of the request to registry that letter. Prok. Ostrowski has served as deputy PG since November 2023; he was appointed to this position by then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
Dispute over the Constitutional Court
The Constitutional Tribunal in its current form was and is criticised by the current authorities and any lawyers, indicating, among others, that it has alleged understudy judges (elected for seats in the Constitutional Tribunal previously occupied). In the beginning of March, the Sejm adopted a resolution in which it stated that "the inclusion in the activities of the public authority of the decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal issued in violation of the law could be regarded as a violation of the rule of legalism by those authorities."
Since the adoption of that resolution by the Sejm, the judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal are not published in the diary of Laws. On the another hand, the resolution of the government adopted in December stated, among another things, that the publication in authoritative journals of the decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal could lead to a state of the regulation of law crisis. As added, ‘it is not permissible to print papers issued by an unauthorised authority’.
At the end of January, Świętczkowski, in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Donald Tusk, demanded the publication of 22 TK judgments issued in 2024. In another letter, Simon Holownia, the talker of the Sejm, appealed for action to fill vacancies in the TK. At the end of November last year, Marshal Holovnia set an additional deadline — by 11 December of the last year — for the submission of candidates for judges of the Constitutional Tribunal in connection with the word of office of 3 judges of the Constitutional Tribunal: Mariusz Muszyński, Piotr Pszczółkowski, and Julia Przyłębska. Only the PiS club reported 2 candidates to the TK. These are: Artur Kotowski and Marek Ast. For now, there is no time limit for the Sejm to consider the applications submitted.
