Police said they detained three people after some in the crowd launched “dangerous projectiles”.Also on Friday, PiS-allied Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced he was turning his plane around while on the way to a sporting event in Senegal, saying: “At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland”.Since his election in mid-2025, Nawrocki has refused to swear in three ⁠of six judges nominated by the Polish parliament.Police officers stand behind a fence as protesters gather outside the headquarters of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw on October 30, 2026 [Wojtek Radwanski/AFP]Politicised judiciaryPoland’s Constitutional Tribunal has long been a point of serious political contention, with critics in Poland and across the European Union accusing PiS, which led the country from 2015 to 2023, of imposing political control over the court by electing judges friendly to the party and its policies.When Poland’s pro-European government came to power, it promised to restore the independence of the judiciary. However, two attempts to do so have been vetoed by two PiS-aligned presidents – one of them Nawrocki.Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, one of the judges Nawrocki refused to swear in on the grounds of alleged flaws in her selection procedure, has now been placed in charge of the Constitutional Tribunal.Politicians from PiS, currently Poland’s largest opposition force, have criticised Swieczkowski’s suspension.“This is a blatant, criminal attack on the constitutional order,” former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro wrote on X Friday.