The European Commission has shown its support for the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, in the institutional standoff over the renewal of the Constitutional Tribunal, marked by President Karol Nawrocki's blocking of the swearing-in of several of the magistrates appointed by Parliament.
"The Polish Constitutional Tribunal must be able to function in accordance with the Polish Constitution and the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU," said the Commissioner for Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law, Michael McGrath, in statements to the media outlet Politico.
"This affects all Polish citizens and it is the Polish authorities that must guarantee it," McGrath added, who recalls that "the Venice Commission has made it clear that appointing new judges is the responsibility of the Sejm" or lower house of the Polish Parliament, he pointed out.
However, the European commissioner has avoided taking a direct position on the decision to remove the president of the Constitutional Tribunal, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and replace him with judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, considered close to Tusk.
In recent months, the Executive led by Donald Tusk has promoted the appointment of as many as eight new judges to the Constitutional Tribunal, although Nawrocki has only agreed to swear in two of them.
Institutional tension soared last Friday, when one of the members of the high court, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, decided to suspend for one month and unilaterally the president of the court, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and his vice president, Bartlomiej Sochanski, at a time when the seat of the Constitutional Tribunal was surrounded by a strong police deployment under the orders of the Tusk Government.