Presidential Chief of Staff Zbigniew Bogucki has testified as a witness in a criminal investigation regarding the President’s refusal to swear in new Constitutional Tribunal judges, sparking a major political confrontation.
A Political Standoff
The summoning of Chancellery officials has triggered a fierce crisis between the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Justice. At the heart of the dispute is a criminal investigation concerning the alleged failure of President Karol Nawrocki to administer oaths to four newly elected Constitutional Tribunal judges. Presidential representatives accuse the Minister of Justice of using the prosecutor’s office as a tool for political pressure.
Zbigniew Bogucki appeared at the prosecutor’s office to provide testimony. He dismissed the investigation as a “phantom case” and a politically motivated attempt to intimidate public officials. Bogucki suggested the probe is a diversionary tactic by Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek to mask his own failures and declining favor with Prime Minister Donald Tsunami.
Constitutional Crisis and Procedural Chaos
The conflict erupted in mid-March when the Sejm elected six new judges to the Tribunal, which then had only nine of its fifteen statutory seats filled. President Nawrocki invited only two—Dariusz Szostek and Magdalena Bentkowska—to be sworn in at the Palace on April 1. The remaining four were not invited, with officials citing a need to investigate formal irregularities in the Sejm process.
On April 9, the four excluded lawyers—Krystian Markiewicz, Maciej Taborowski, Marcin Dziurda, and Anna Korwin-Piotrowska—held an alternative swearing-in ceremony in the Sejm’s Column Hall. The two judges previously sworn in by the President also participated in this event in the presence of a notary, and the documents were submitted to the Presidential Chancellery.
The Dispute Over Judicial Status
Constitutional Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski has refused to allow the four judges sworn in at the Sejm to perform their duties, arguing their oaths are not legally valid as they were not taken before the President. Consequently, President Nawrocki has filed a jurisdictional dispute with the Constitutional Tribunal to resolve the matter.
The presidential camp maintains that the President never formally refused to administer the oaths, but merely suspended the process pending legal clarification. Bogucki criticized the prosecutor’s office for logical inconsistency, arguing that if the government already recognizes the judges as having been sworn in at the Sejm, there is no legal basis to prosecute the President for failing to swear them in at the Palace. On May 22, the six judges requested a General Assembly of Tribunal judges to address the institutional impasse.