Val Baker

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED IN WARSAW IN THE LAST FEW HOURS — IN ORDER: → Riot police in helmets and shields move onto the grounds of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal, the court that checks laws against the Constitution → The court's website says its president and vice-president are suspended for one month — not by parliament, by one judge President Nawrocki refused to swear in, who now takes over → Nawrocki, over Spain on his way to Senegal, turns his plane AROUND and heads back to Warsaw → The court's own X account answers — the website was unlawfully taken over, that judge "is not a judge" and everyone involved is committing a COUP → The justice minister asks to lift both men's immunity — and sends 50 volumes of case files to that same judge Nawrocki's reason, in his own words: "At such a moment, the President must be in Poland." Not a scheduled return. Not a technical stop. Nawrocki heard what was happening at one court — and the whole Senegal trip waited. That's the sequence. And the list of people in that fight tells you everything about what this night is actually about: → A suspended vice-president shut outside a gate locked from inside, saying "a coup is happening" → An opposition that says police stormed the building and closed every entrance on Prime Minister Tusk's orders — "from today Poland becomes a police state" → A prime minister who calls it restoring the rule of law: "There is no other way" Police answer: no officer is inside the building, only on the outer grounds. They say that same judge warned of "threats" to judges and staff, objects were thrown at officers and 3 people were detained for jumping the fence. The fight underneath: parliament elected new judges, Nawrocki refused to swear in some of them and the court's president kept them off the bench. The government says it is securing the site during that fight. Its justice minister: "the state must protect the judges." This isn't just a court dispute. It's a constitutional crisis on wings — and it turned a presidential plane around over Spain because Nawrocki wasn't done fighting. One court. Two people claiming to run it. One month on the suspension order. Tag the friend who swears a court fight like this could never happen inside the EU.