Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk addressed the nation on October 31 as tensions surrounding the Constitutional Tribunal escalated. He blamed the Law and Justice party, President Karol Nawrocki and former president Andrzej Duda for what he described as further damage to the rule of law.

Radio Svoboda reported the remarks on Saturday, October 31. Tusk alleged that his opponents were receiving help from an “army of Russian bots” online and had drawn public praise from a leading Kremlin ideologue.

The prime minister also accused Nawrocki of refusing to swear in newly appointed judges and said efforts by his Civic Coalition majority to settle the institutional dispute had been obstructed. On the same date, former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki proposed that parliament hold a no-confidence vote in Tusk’s government.

A day earlier, judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska suspended tribunal chairman Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy Bartłomiej Sochański and assumed the chair’s duties. Police cordoned off the building as hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside. The confrontation reflects a longer conflict in which the government and the tribunal’s existing members reject rival judicial appointments.