Polish PM Tusk vows support for tribunal amid court crisis

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sought to offer assurances that the country's Constitutional Tribunal will operate in accordance with the law, after President Karol Nawrocki, an ally of the previous hard-right government, accused him of staging a forced takeover of the court.



Late on Friday, the Constitutional Tribunal said its longest-serving judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska had suspended Bogdan Swieczkowski, the tribunal's president and an appointee of Tusk's nationalist predecessor, and was now in charge of the court.



The move escalated a battle between Nawrocki and Tusk's pro-European government over control of the judiciary.



"I am certain that the Constitutional Tribunal will function as it should. Also, independently of me and in line with the constitution," Tusk said in a televised speech.



"The task of the executive branch, and therefore mine, is to ensure its safety and working conditions, and I intend to fulfill my duty."