On the night of this Friday, a large police deployment has cordoned off the headquarters of the Constitutional Court of Poland in Warsaw, amid an evident crisis over the current composition of the court.
It all began after the official Polish agency PAP reported that the president of the court, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and its vice president, Bartlomiej Sochanski, had been suspended for one month, without providing further explanations about the reasons for the decision.
Minutes later, the Constitutional Court itself reacted on its official social media accounts, assuring that both magistrates continue carrying out their duties and have not been removed from their posts.
According to PAP, the names of Swieczkowski and Sochanski had disappeared from the official website of the body, while the court maintains that the portal has suffered an "illegal takeover" and warns that anyone who acts against the institution is committing the crime of "coup d'État".
For its part, the Police of Warsaw has also explained through social media that the deployment is part of a protection operation against "aggressive behavior", after a group of people was "trying to break the fence" surrounding the court building.
Political tension has increased even more when the president of the country, Karol Nawrocki, declared adversary of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has decided to cancel his official trip to Senegal and return immediately. "At a time like this, the president must be in Poland," he has stated.