I’m not any sort of expert on Polish politics, so I’m relying on newspaper stories to fill me in. It’s not easy to sort out, but here’s a summary:

A long-running political dispute over the Constitutional Tribunal has effectively paralysed the institution, with the pro-European government and the nationalist president refusing to recognise appointees put forward by the other side.

Tusk, writing on X, said his government was ?seeking to restore the rule of law, which the European Union had accused his predecessors — the Law and Justice Party — of subverting.

Tusk is the Polish prime minister, and the conflict is with the Polish President Karol Nawrocki. European designations of “left” and “right” are so different from ours that I hesitate to use the terms, but I’ll tentatively say that Tusk is more to the left and Nawrocki more to the right. Not-always-helpful Google AI calls Tusk “center-right” but adds that he is allied with progressive and “center-left” parties. As for Nawrocki, he is called “far-right” here, but in Europe that seems to be applied to most people on the right who want to limit immigration. But Tusk is in agreement on limiting illegal immigration; perhaps that’s why he’s called “center-right”?

So, what is the dispute about besides power? The party that controls the high court controls the country? Perhaps to a certain extent – also true of the US, which is why the Democrats wish to pack the Court, and if they control the Senate and any SCOTUS judge dies or wishes to retire in the next two years, they will not approve his or her Trump-appointed successor.

More on the Polish crisis:

Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (TK) was plunged into chaos on Friday evening as one group of judges, backed by the government, moved to take control of the court from its chief justice, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition and President Karol Nawrocki.

One of the government-backed judges said that she had suspended the chief justice, Bogdan Swiczkowski, from his duties. Police have surrounded the court and were seen preventing Swiczkowski from entering the grounds after his supporters had cut through the fence with a power tool.

Swiczkowski and the opposition claim that an illegal “coup d’état” is underway. Nawrocki, who had been flying to Senegal for a state visit, ordered his plane to turn around and return to Warsaw.

But what led up to the present situation?:

The dramatic events follow a years-long crisis surrounding the TK. Since the current government – a coalition ranging from left to centre right led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk – came to power in 2023, it has refused to recognise the court’s legitimacy.

That is because three of its judges were unlawfully appointed under the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, which was widely seen to have brought the court under political control.

As a result, Tusk’s government has ignored the TK’s rulings and, until this year, refused to even nominate new judges to fill vacancies that arose on the court’s 15-person bench.

The article goes on and on in that vein, but try to figure out who might be acting correctly and you might run into trouble, as I did. Suffice to say it’s a nasty power struggle and has been going on for a while, with each side accusing the other of lawlessness.

However, if I were forced to choose a side, it wouldn’t be Tusk’s.