Tusk’s Polish courts ‘are tearing down justice’

In Poland governed by Donald Tusk’s coalition, the justice system no longer operates independently in political cases. It has been brought under the control of left-liberal politicians and turned into a tool of repression against political opponents. This is no longer just a “rule of law crisis” ongoing since December 2023, but a deepening, systemic transformation of the state into a crypto-dictatorship. Within the next three months, the governing majority plans to take over additional constitutional institutions.

A decisive moment exposing the scale of lawfare and the weaponisation of the judiciary against the opposition in Poland came just before Christmas, when a widely respected, highly experienced judge, Dariusz Łubowski, overturned a European Arrest Warrant issued against me. In a detailed justification, he described today’s Poland as a crypto-dictatorship—one in which formal democratic institutions still exist, but the executive systematically violates constitutional principles by subordinating the prosecution service, the courts, and the media. The ruling identified a radical breach of the constitutional order: Unprecedented executive interference in judicial independence, public political attacks on judges, and the instrumental use of law enforcement against the opposition. This was not merely a finding in my case, but a diagnosis of the State itself.

Judge Łubowski also based his ruling on two circumstances of an international nature. First, he relied on Interpol’s decision refusing to issue a Red Notice against me, citing violations by Tusk’s prosecution service of Interpol’s principles and the standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Under Polish criminal procedure, courts are obliged to reassess a European Arrest Warrant when negative premises arise—such as a conflict with the interests of justice—and the judge held that Interpol’s decision constituted precisely such a premise.

Meanwhile, despite possessing this document since April, the prosecution failed to submit it to the court, in breach of its legal duty—a violation explicitly identified by the court. At the same time, the prosecution publicly lied by claiming that Interpol’s decision contained no reasoning. It is therefore hardly surprising that the grounds set out in that decision are devastating for Tusk’s regime.

Even more scandalously, prosecutors also failed to submit to the court an official communication from the Secretary-General of the Council of the EU dated March 5, 2025, confirming that Hungary had granted me political asylum. The court obtained this document only upon formal request and concluded that Hungary’s decision was lawful under EU and international law, properly notified to EU institutions, not challenged by any of them or by any Member State, and well-founded—confirming the absence of a fair trial and the existence of systemic, politically motivated repression in Poland.

The authorities responded immediately. First, the Minister of Justice publicly launched a harsh attack on the judge (notably, just one month earlier he had publicly praised him for a ruling in another case). Then, in blatant violation of the ne bis in idem principle (similar to the prohibition against double jeopardy), based on the same facts and identical evidence, a new EAW application was filed over a single weekend. Judge Łubowski, who for years had been the sole specialist handling international criminal matters under the court’s internal rules, was removed, effectively because of the content of his prior final ruling. Random case assignment was unlawfully suspended, and a ministerial nominee illegally hand-picked a “proper” judge at the last minute. These steps were taken to ensure that a pre-written decision drafted in the offices of the Minister of Justice would be signed. This became possible because the Minister of Justice in 2024 unlawfully replaced court leadership in Warsaw, in defiance of statutory law and Constitutional Tribunal rulings, purging lawfully appointed presidents and side-lining independent judges. 

Manipulating judicial panels, however, pales in comparison to what has occurred in recent days around the National Council of the Judiciary—the constitutional body tasked with safeguarding judicial independence, issuing opinions on judicial appointments, and overseeing promotions. Under the law governing the system of ordinary courts, the Council is also responsible for providing administrative support for judges serving nationwide as public prosecutors in judicial disciplinary cases. Control over disciplinary proceedings against judges is a powerful tool for persecuting independent judges and shielding loyalists involved in illegal subordinating the justice system to a liberal autocracy; that is why the Minister of Justice unlawfully cut short the statutory fixed terms of office of the disciplinary judges and installed his own political nominees, in open defiance of prior Constitutional Tribunal rulings and later confirmed as unlawful by the Supreme Court.

And since the disciplinary judges did not submit to these unlawful decisions and continued to conduct proceedings before the Supreme Court (which refused to admit the usurpers appointed by the minister), the executive opted for the use of force. On 21 January 2026, there was a brutal, forceful entry into the headquarters of the National Council of the Judiciary. During the operation, violence was used against judges and administrative staff, and their freedom was unlawfully restricted. Around one hundred police officers, led by two military prosecutors acting on political orders, stormed the building and broke into armoured safes to seize disciplinary case files—including those concerning the Minister of Justice himself, who before taking office had been a judge accused of falsifying judgments, allegedly issued on days when there is evidence that he was abroad.

There are serious concerns that the Supreme Court will be the next target. All indications point to preparations for a police intervention intended to prevent the election of a new First President, scheduled for late February or early March. Such a scenario has already been attempted once, with aggressive activist groups mobilised to serve as a pretext. And in February, Tusk intends to fill a majority of seats on the Constitutional Tribunal. This body, composed of fifteen judges appointed for nine-year terms, in the hands of the globalist camp would become a powerful instrument for transforming democracy into an oligarchic juristocracy and for blocking, for years to come—even against the will of parliament—any changes, under the pretext of “unconstitutionality”.

Over the past two years, liberals have shown the extent of abuses they are capable of. In many parts of the world, juristocracy in their hands has become a tool of autocratic power. Finally, in April, the term of the National Council of the Judiciary expires. Its takeover will deepen chaos in the courts and completely devastate the third branch of government. The ultimate target remains the presidency—its removal under the pretext of an allegedly improperly constituted Supreme Court is not an implausible scenario.

Justice in Poland is no longer blind—today, crowbar in hand, it is tearing down the foundations of the rule of law. All of this is happening with the silent consent of Europe’s left-liberal establishment, increasingly irritated by Tusk’s incompetence but still backing him. More than two years have passed, and Poland has not been fully subdued. The presidential election was won by the conservative Karol Nawrocki, European censorship under the DSA was blocked in Poland, social resistance is growing, and conservative media are expanding.

Political refugees from Tusk’s crypto-dictatorship in Hungary—a bastion of freedom and normalcy—including the author of these words, are exposing the scale of liberal lawlessness. Brussels and Berlin understand perfectly well that sovereign, pro-Atlantic states with strong Christian national identities—such as Poland and Hungary—pose a threat to the EU centralisation project. That is why they are deploying all means to break them, and why, despite their impatience, they continue to support Tusk’s political repression—even when it relies on concealing decisions of international organisations, and the EU itself, as in the case of the December court ruling annulling the EAW.

Marcin Romanowski is a Doctor of Law, university lecturer,  former Deputy Minister of Justice in the Law and Justice government, currently a Member of the Polish Parliament in exile in Hungary and Director of the Hungarian-Polish Institute of Freedom in Budapest