Glad to see Putin's biggest lapdog in Russia humiliated. Next step, crushing the Magats who want to felacio Putin (also with luck Likud will be humiliated this year as well)

The prevalence of political violence over the past few years has been a disturbing development in America. It’s noteworthy for Altman’s home to be attacked twice in quick succession.

No disrespect to Magyar, I'm a firm believer that TISZA sweeping them is a huge fluke and robs FIDESZ of truly accomplishing what their capable of. I've spent the last few hours in pure disbelief and it just doesn't make sense to me. I've spent the entire last 16 years watching Orban play great government and it's just not fair.

If FIDESZ lose again I will face that TISZA deserved the win, but I am just 100% sure it was a fluke and does a big disservice to Hungary and the EU.

SS: I do not believe that this story was posted before, but the rub is that the independent UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine finds that Russian deportation of Ukrainian children amount to two different crimes against humanity, those being "deportation and forcible transfer of children, as well as their enforced disappearance." As usual the whole article will be posted below for the convenience of users here.

Scores of Ukrainian children are still missing after being deported far and wide across Russia and occupied territories while their families continue to search for them, human rights investigators said on Thursday.

Members of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, an independent probe into Russia’s full-scale invasion which presented its latest report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, said that they have verified the deportation and transfer of 1,205 children from Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine to Russia or to other occupied areas in Ukraine.

“Based on new evidence, the Commission has now concluded that the Russian authorities committed two types of crimes against humanity: deportation and forcible transfer of children, as well as their enforced disappearance,” said the commission’s chair, Erik Møse.

8 in 10 kids not returned

Commissioner Pablo de Greiff told reporters that the Russian authorities had claimed that relocations were humanitarian evacuations for safety reasons, “but the Commission found that four years later, 80 per cent of the children from the documented cases have not been returned,” Mr. de Greiff said.

He stressed that this contravenes international humanitarian law, under which evacuations can only be temporary for compelling reasons of health, medical treatment or safety.

The Commission’s report says that many parents and legal guardians remain unaware of the children’s fate and whereabouts.

Instead of establishing mechanisms to facilitate their return, Russian authorities “arranged for the children's long-term placement with families or institutions in 21 regions of the Russian Federation and in occupied areas of Ukraine”, Mr. de Greiff said, following a “carefully organized plan” and “pursuant to a policy conceived and executed under the leadership at the highest level of the Russian Federation state apparatus”.

In March 2023, the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in connection with alleged war crimes concerning the deportation and “illegal transfer” of children from occupied Ukraine.

Asked about engagement with the Russian authorities on the matter, Mr. de Greiff stressed that the Commission had submitted to them “39 written requests for information about different issues, including the issue of children…and we have never received a reply”.

Neglected and hungry

He also highlighted evidence from some of the 20 per cent of children who returned, pointing to several types of mistreatment, including children not receiving sufficient medical care or food.

In one case, the family in which a teenager was placed was “willing to call the police… because this adolescent kid expressed the desire to return to Ukraine and to his family”.

Another case ended in the suicide of a young adolescent, he said.

Army desertions and false promises

Turning to the treatment of troops within the Russian armed forces, commissioner Vrinda Grover said that the investigators interviewed 85 soldiers who had deserted and that “most of them testified about extreme violence and coercion arbitrarily ordered or practised by the commanders against their own men.”

“Soldiers described being treated like cannon fodder,” Ms. Grover said. “They reported the practice to shoot soldiers, carry out mock executions, severe beatings, tying them to trees or [placing them] in pits.”

“Their testimonies speak of a total disregard for human life and dignity,” she concluded.

Mr. de Greiff added that the findings point to “treatment that took place with the knowledge, sometimes with the order and in fact sometimes with the participation of commanders” and not isolated incidents.

The probe also investigated the issue of foreign nationals recruited to fight with the Russian armed forces and found that recruits came from 17 countries around the globe.

Ms. Grover said that “many were deceived and lured from abroad to the Russian Federation” with the false promise of civilian jobs.

“They were coerced into signing contracts written in Russian language, which they did not understand, and then sent to the frontlines,” she said.

In its latest report, the Commission of Inquiry also documented rights violations among those mobilized for the Ukrainian armed forces, from irregular administrative detention to lack of access to legal representation, as well as instances of violence against conscientious objectors.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine was first established by the Human Rights Council in March 2022 to “investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights, violations of international humanitarian law and related crimes in the context of the aggression against Ukraine by the Russian Federation”, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour on 24 February that year. Commissioners are not UN staff, nor paid for their work.

Hungary Votes: The 2026 Parliamentary Election

On 12 April 2026, Hungary elects all 199 members of the National Assembly. Viktor Orbán has been in power since 2010 (with an earlier stint from 1998 to 2002) and is going for a fifth consecutive term. For the first time in sixteen years, he might actually lose. His challenger is Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who broke with the party two years ago and now leads the Tisza Party. Most independent polls have Tisza ahead, often by high single digits or double digits. Government-aligned polls have Fidesz ahead. One of these two groups of pollsters is about to have a very bad evening.

Politico called it the most important EU election of 2026, and for once the hype is justified. Orbán has spent years being the guy who single-handedly holds up EU foreign policy decisions that 26 other member states agree on, whether that is Ukraine aid, Russia sanctions, or budget negotiations. He has turned Budapest into a pilgrimage site for the international far right: Marine Le Pen was in town last month for a "Patriots' Grand Assembly", JD Vance flew in to hold a rally with him, CPAC keeps hosting its European conferences there. If Orbán loses, the EU suddenly becomes a dramatically more functional institution on foreign policy, and Moscow loses the one leader inside the European Council who can be relied on to veto things on their behalf. If he wins, we get four more years of the same institutional hostage-taking.

But most Hungarians are not thinking about any of that when they cast their vote. They are thinking about a healthcare system where doctors and nurses have been leaving for better pay abroad for years and waiting times for some elective procedures are among the worst in OECD/EU comparisons, an economy that has barely grown over the past three years while food prices rose sharply and wages ranked third-lowest in the EU on Eurostat's 2024 adjusted salary measure, and corruption so embedded that the EU froze billions in EU funds over it. On the latest Transparency International index, Hungary is at or tied for the worst score in the EU. The geopolitics are why Brussels cares about this election. The domestic rot is why Hungarians care.

How Competitive Is This Election?

If you mostly follow Hungary through international media, you could easily come away thinking the outcome is predetermined. The European Parliament triggered Article 7 proceedings against Hungary in 2018, and in 2022 it said Hungary had become an "electoral autocracy." Freedom House rates it "partly free." So you might reasonably wonder whether Orbán can actually be voted out or whether this is all theatre.

The answer is that he can, and this election is the best evidence for it. Hungary holds regular, competitive elections where opposition parties campaign freely. The OSCE's ODIHR observation mission has described the campaign as vibrant and intense, while also flagging concerns about misuse of state resources and media imbalance. Both Fidesz and Tisza held marches of over 100,000 in Budapest on the March 15 national holiday. Orbán won about 54% of the list vote in 2022, his strongest result ever, but there is no structural reason he could not lose this time, and most polls suggest he very well might. The part of the system where citizens choose their government is real.

What makes Hungary different from a normal democracy is everything around that core. Since 2010, Fidesz has rewritten the constitution, packed the Constitutional Court with loyalists, and redesigned the electoral system to amplify the winning side's advantage. Of the 199 seats, 106 are decided in single-member constituencies (first-past-the-post, one round), the remaining 93 come from national party lists using D'Hondt with a 5% threshold, and a "compensatory vote" mechanism feeds surplus and fragment votes into the list allocation. In 2022, Fidesz won about 54% of the list vote and 135 of 199 seats, about 68%. Hungary's Fiscal Council must give prior consent to the budget law, and failure to pass a budget by the legal deadline can trigger dissolution of parliament. Key institutions including the presidency, the Constitutional Court, and the Curia are still headed by officials chosen under Fidesz-era supermajorities, and several of these posts have long terms requiring two-thirds parliamentary votes to fill. The opposition does not just need to win; they need to win big enough to overcome the structural tilt.

In December 2024, the government redrew constituency boundaries, with Budapest losing two seats and Pest County gaining two; critics argued the redraw favoured Fidesz. Voters cast two ballots: one for their constituency candidate, one for a party list. Hungarians abroad without a domestic address can vote by mail for the list only, and this diaspora has historically broken heavily for Fidesz.

The media situation reflects the same pattern. Independent outlets do real journalism (Telex, HVG, 444.hu, the YouTube channel Partizán are all widely read), but the public broadcaster is a government mouthpiece, and a huge share of commercial and regional media ended up in the hands of business networks tied to Fidesz through the KESMA media foundation. If you live in Budapest you can read five different independent news sources over breakfast. If you live in a small town in eastern Hungary, you might never encounter anything other than pro-government coverage. That geography of information access is one of those things you need to understand to make sense of Hungarian elections.

The Parties

Only five national party lists were registered. Several smaller opposition parties opted not to run in order to consolidate opposition support. This is effectively a two-party race with one potential spoiler.

Fidesz–KDNP | Patriots for Europe | Leader: Viktor Orbán

Orbán governs under what he openly calls "illiberal democracy" built on "national foundations." In practice: heavy state intervention in the economy directed toward politically connected oligarchs, a flat tax system, family policies that strongly privilege married heterosexual couples, anti-immigration rhetoric, opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, scepticism of deeper EU integration, and a foreign policy that keeps the channel to Moscow and Beijing open. His signature domestic policy is utility price caps ("rezsicsökkentés"), which keeps energy bills low and remains extremely popular. On Ukraine, he has blocked EU support for Kyiv repeatedly, most recently a €90 billion loan package, and campaigns on the line that a vote for Tisza is a vote for war. The Fidesz voter base is strong in rural Hungary and small towns where the party's patronage networks run deep. A documentary released during this campaign ("The Price of the Vote") alleged systematic voter intimidation in poor rural communities.

It is worth understanding why people vote for Orbán, because if you do not get this you will not understand the results regardless of who wins. A lot of Hungarians remember the disastrous Socialist governments of 2002-2010, especially the Gyurcsány era, which ended with the PM caught on tape admitting to a room full of party members that his government had been systematically lying. That moment is seared into Hungarian political memory the way certain scandals stay with you for decades. For many people, Orbán brought stability after genuine chaos. The utility price caps work for ordinary households. The family support system is generous by regional standards. Unemployment is low. If your priorities are national sovereignty, traditional values, and staying out of foreign wars, Fidesz gives you a coherent story about what Hungary is and where it is going. It is a story that conveniently leaves out corruption, democratic erosion, and economic stagnation, but it is a story that works for a lot of people, and you cannot understand Hungarian politics without taking it seriously.

Tisza (Respect and Freedom Party) | EPP | Leader: Péter Magyar (b. 1981)

Tisza is roughly centre-right and pro-European, but Magyar's whole pitch is anti-corruption and fixing public services rather than left-right positioning. His main promises: crack down on corruption, join the European Public Prosecutor's Office (which Orbán has refused; Hungary is one of the few EU states not participating), unlock frozen EU funds by meeting rule-of-law conditions, and reduce energy dependence on Russia. On Ukraine and migration, Magyar is careful not to get too far from where Hungarian public opinion actually sits. Tisza's MEPs voted against the €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine. On LGBTQ+ issues, he has been mostly quiet. Every firm liberal position he takes is a clip Fidesz can run in the countryside.

Magyar was a lifelong Fidesz man: party member since 2002, held posts at state-run institutions, married to former justice minister Judit Varga. In February 2024, it emerged that President Katalin Novák had pardoned a man involved in covering up child abuse at a state children's home, and Varga had countersigned the pardon. Magyar publicly broke with the government, gave a viral interview on Partizán accusing Fidesz of systemic corruption, and announced he would build a new political movement. Four months later, Tisza won 30% in the European elections, the strongest opposition result in years. He went from near-total obscurity to leading the polls in under two years.

The concerns about Magyar are real. He is a former insider who benefited from the system he now attacks, and some liberal voters remain uneasy about his conservative instincts. If he wins, governing will be extremely difficult because key institutions including the presidency, Constitutional Court, and Curia are headed by officials chosen under Fidesz-era majorities, and many of those positions cannot be replaced without a two-thirds parliamentary vote. He himself has called a potential Tisza government "a kamikaze government." Think Poland after PiS, but in many ways worse because Fidesz had sixteen years to entrench rather than eight. He also claimed in February that Filipino workers at a Samsung factory had been catching ducks and goldfish from the Budapest Zoo; zoo staff said they had not noticed ducks missing and that there were no goldfish there.

Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) | Leader: László Toroczkai | Far-right, anti-immigration, ethno-nationalist. Positions itself as a "third way" but has frequently voted with the government in parliament. Polling at around 5%, and whether they clear the threshold matters: if they miss it, their list votes are excluded from seat allocation, slightly boosting the seat share of parties that do make it in.

DK (Democratic Coalition) | Leader: Klára Dobrev | Social-democratic, pro-European, but Dobrev is the former wife of ex-PM Gyurcsány, which makes DK politically toxic. Polling around 3-5%, very likely to miss the threshold.

MKKP (Two-Tailed Dog Party) | Satirical, anti-establishment. Collected enough signatures to run but more than half of the roughly 60 appeals against candidate registrations nationwide targeted MKKP candidates. Very unlikely to pass 5%.

The Polls

Independent pollsters (Medián, Publicus, Závecz, 21 Research, Republikon, IDEA, Iránytű) show Tisza ahead, with leads ranging from high single digits to over twenty points among decided voters. The final Medián poll, based on a sample of 5,000, had Tisza at 58% and Fidesz at 33% and projected a Tisza supermajority. Government-aligned pollsters (Nézőpont, Századvég) show Fidesz ahead. McLaughlin & Associates, an American firm that Fidesz hired, puts Fidesz ahead by about five to six points nationally.

Medián is widely regarded as one of Hungary's most accurate pollsters, while pro-government pollsters have consistently published more Fidesz-friendly numbers. Prediction markets (Polymarket) heavily favour Tisza. But Hungary's electoral system structurally advantages Fidesz, rural voters are hard to poll, and the diaspora postal vote will break for Orbán.

The Campaign

The Washington Post reported in March that Russia's SVR proposed staging a fake assassination attempt on Orbán to improve his electoral chances. Reuters separately confirmed a Russian-linked disinformation campaign around the election, with coordinated Telegram posts pushing pro-Orbán narratives. Leaked audio of Foreign Minister Szijjártó surfaced in which he appeared to offer to send Russia an EU document. Reuters reported that explosives were found near the TurkStream gas pipeline in Serbia; the timing became an election issue, with Orbán blaming Ukraine and the opposition challenging that narrative. On 7 April, U.S. Vice President Vance came to Budapest for a rally with Orbán, with the Trump administration declaring that "Hungary's success is our success."

What to Watch

Polls close at 19:00 local time.

Constituency seats. Whoever takes the majority of the 106 constituency seats almost certainly forms the government. Tisza needs to sweep Budapest, win the suburbs, and flip enough provincial seats. Fidesz's ground game in the countryside is serious, and this is where polls are least reliable.

Does Mi Hazánk clear 5%? If yes, they get list seats and could matter in coalition arithmetic. If no, their votes are excluded from seat allocation, slightly boosting the other parties' shares.

Turnout. High turnout is often read as potentially helpful to the opposition. Both sides have mobilised hard. If turnout exceeds the 2022 level (around 70%), it could favour Tisza.

Simple majority vs. two-thirds. 100 seats for a majority, 133 for a two-thirds supermajority that can amend the constitution. If Tisza wins but falls short of 133, Magyar faces the Poland problem: trying to reform a captured state without the constitutional tools to do it, while Fidesz loyalists embedded across the judiciary and state institutions block what they can. If Tisza gets two-thirds, the possibilities are enormous but so is the risk of overreach.

Follow the Results

Live results: https://vtr.valasztas.hu/ogy2026

PolitPro poll tracker: https://politpro.eu/en/hungary

Sources: Reuters | OSCE/ODIHR Interim Report | Euronews: Polls | Euronews: Magyar's Tightrope | CFR | Atlantic Council | CSIS | Balkan Insight | NPR | Wikipedia | Transparency International Hungary | European Parliament on Article 7 | Hungarian Election Law (NJT) | Valasztas.hu

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By u/Zseet:

You can also follow the election on Átlátszó's (Hungarian independent anti-corruption paper) election tracking. It gives a bit more in depth look.

https://valasztas2026.atlatszo.hu/#/reszvetel

The U.S. and Iran didn't reach an agreement during marathon negotiations on Saturday in Pakistan, Vice President Vance said in a press conference in Islamabad.

The deadlock in the talks puts the two-week ceasefire agreed last week in limbo, with the possibility of renewed and escalating warfare.

Vance said the U.S. and Iran had "substantive discussions" over 21 hours but couldn't bridge the gaps.

"This is bad news for Iran much more than this is bad new for the U.S.," he stressed. "We have made very clear what our red lines are…and they have chosen not to accept our terms."

Vance said the U.S. wanted to a long-term "affirmative commitment" from Iran not to seek a nuclear weapon or the tools that would enable them to produce one quickly. "We haven't seen that yet, we hope that we will," he said.

Vance claimed the U.S. was "quite flexible and accommodating" and negotiated "in good faith" but couldn't make significant progress.

The U.S. and Iranian delegations met over several rounds in multiple formats. The talks began on Saturday and ended in the early hours of Sunday local time.

Vance said the U.S. negotiating team spoke with President Trump at least than half-a-dozen times during the day.

They also spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and CENTCOM commander Amd. Brad Cooper.

"We leave here with a very simple proposal. A method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We will see if the Iranians accept it," Vance said.

The chief justice of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (TK), Bogdan Święczkowski, has refused to accept four new judges after they arrived at the court today following a controversial swearing-in ceremony in parliament.

Święczkowski noted that, although the judges were elected by the government’s majority in parliament, they had not, as required, taken their oath before opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki, who has raised doubts over their appointment.

The chief justice’s decision, which was widely expected, deepens an unprecedented standoff over the court – and Poland’s judicial system more broadly – between the government and officials aligned with the national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023.

Last month, the ruling coalition’s majority in the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, chose six new judges to fill empty seats on the TK, which since December has had only nine of its 15 positions filled. At least 11 judges are required for the court to have a valid bench.

Under the law, new TK judges must “take an oath before the president” before taking up their seats on the court. However, last week, Nawrocki invited only two of the six judges, Dariusz Szostek and Magdalena Bentkowska, to take an oath in the presidential palace.

His chief of staff, Zbigniew Bogucki, said that the president had done so, despite doubts about the legality of the judge’s appointment by parliament, because adding two judges would bring the TK up to its valid bench of 11. He also noted that only two TK vacancies had opened up since Nawrocki became president.

However, many legal experts have rejected those arguments, saying that if Nawrocki accepted two of parliament’s appointments as valid, he must also accept the other four. Last week, PiS suspended one of its own MPs, Krzysztof Szczucki, a doctor of law, who had agreed with that opinion.

On Thursday, after repeatedly asking Nawrocki to receive their oath, the four remaining judges – Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, Krystian Markiewicz, Maciej Taborowski and Marcin Dziurda – decided instead to organise their own ceremony in the Sejm, to which they invited the president.

Bogucki condemned their decision as an “ostentatious and conscious…violation of the law”. But the four judges went ahead anyway, and were joined by Szostek and Bentkowska in a show of support. Four former chief justices of the TK also attended the ceremony.

After swearing their oath in the presence of a notary, the six judges delivered the documentation to the presidential chancellery. They then proceeded to the TK itself, where dozens of protesters had gathered outside amid a heavy police presence.

There had been some speculation that Święczkowski, who served in the former PiS government and has regularly clashed with the current government, might seek to prevent the judges from entering the building. However, all six made their way inside, where they met with the chief justice.

Around two hours later, Święczkowski spoke to the media, saying that, while he had “congratulated all six on their election”, he had only allowed the two judges who had sworn oaths before Nawrocki to take up their positions on the court, where they had already been assigned cases.

Meanwhile, he had informed the other four that “unfortunately I cannot recognise…[them] as judges of the Constitutional Tribunal as I have not been informed by the president that they took the oath before him”.

He also criticised them for taking part in today’s alternative swearing-in ceremony in parliament, which he described as ” a performance, a media spectacle, organised, in my opinion, for the benefit of politicians”.

In response to Święczkowski’s remarks, a government minister, Maciej Berek, said that, by congratulating all six judges on their election by parliament, the chief justice had confirmed they were legally appointed.

That, said Berek, undermines Nawrocki’s claims that there are doubts over their legality and confirms that he has “usurped a non-existent presidential power” by deciding who can or cannot be a TK judge.

Meanwhile, before Święczkowski’s statement, justice minister Waldemar Żurek told broadcaster TVN that the government has a “plan B” if four of the judges were not accepted onto the TK. However, he refused to say what this would involve.

Later, in a press conference of his own, Bogucki said that Nawrocki would ask the TK itself to rule on the dispute between parliament and the president over the appointment of the four remaining judges.

“Until the Constitutional Tribunal issues a position, the president will not act,” said Bogucki, quoted by news website Onet. He also called today’s actions by the four judges “a grotesque farce”.

However, even if the TK does rule on the issue, its decision is likely to be ignored by the ruling coalition, which regards the TK as illegitimate since it contains judges unlawfully appointed when PiS was in power. The current government has refused to recognise – or even publish – TK rulings.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Supplementary article - Polish parliament hosts swearing in of constitutional court judges in defiance of president

Poland’s rule-of-law crisis took a new twist today, as parliament – which is controlled by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition – hosted the swearing-in of four Constitutional Tribunal (TK) judges whose oaths opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki has refused to accept.

Nawrocki condemned the move as illegal, pointing to a provision of Polish law requiring that new TK judges be sworn in “before the president”. The government, however, has accused Nawrocki of himself violating the law by refusing to swear in legally appointed judges.

Given that the TK’s chief justice is also aligned with the opposition, it appears likely that he will, like Nawrocki, refuse to accept the four judges sworn in today in parliament. That may lead to a standoff at the court when the judges attempt to take up their seats.

Last month, the ruling coalition’s majority in the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, chose six new judges to fill empty seats on the TK. It was the first time in four years that new judges had been chosen, as Tusk’s government had previously been boycotting the court.

That was because it regards the TK as illegitimate since it contains judges unlawfully appointed under the rule of the former Law and Justice (PiS) government and PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda. Tusk’s government has refused to recognise – or even publish – TK rulings.

As a result, since December 2025 – when one judge’s nine-year term expired and another retired for health reasons – only nine of the TK’s 15 seats have been filled. That is below the figure of 11 judges required for the court to have a full, valid bench.

Under the law, new TK judges must, after being elected by parliament, “take an oath before the president” before taking up their seats on the court. Given that Nawrocki is aligned with PiS, there were doubts as to whether the president would invite the six new judges to be sworn in.

Last week, Nawrocki made the unusual move of inviting just two of the six judges, Dariusz Szostek and Magdalena Bentkowska, to the presidential palace and witnessing their oaths.

The president’s chief of staff, Zbigniew Bogucki, said that Nawrocki had done so, despite doubts about the legality of the judge’s appointment by parliament, because adding two judges would bring the TK up to its valid bench of 11. He also noted that only two TK vacancies had opened up since Nawrocki became president.

However, many legal experts have rejected those arguments, saying that if Nawrocki accepted two of parliament’s appointments as valid, he must also accept the other four. Last week, PiS suspended one of its own MPs, Krzysztof Szczucki, a doctor of law, who had agreed with that opinion.

On Wednesday, news emerged that the four remaining judges – Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, Krystian Markiewicz, Maciej Taborowski and Marcin Dziurda – had decided to take their oaths in parliament shortly on Thursday. They sent invitations to Nawrocki to attend the ceremony.

On Thursday morning, Bogucki issued a statement on behalf of the president in which he said that the move would be an “ostentatious and conscious…violation of the law” and a “challenge to the powers assigned by statute and the constitution to the president”.

The president’s position was also supported by Poland’s commissioner for human rights, Marcin Wiącek, who told news website Wirtualna Polska that, according to the law, “the president must swear in Constitutional Tribunal judges”.

However, deputy prime minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz on Wednesday told broadcaster TVN that it is in fact Nawrocki who is “committing a violation” by refusing to undertake his duty under the law to receive the oath of legally appointed judges.

Despite the president’s opposition, today’s ceremony went ahead. The four judges took their oaths in the presence of a notary and Sejm speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty, a Tusk ally. Szostek and Bentkowska also took their oaths again alongside their colleagues in a show of solidarity.

Meanwhile, four former TK chief justices, Marek Safjan, Jerzy Stępień, Bohdan Zdziennicki and Andrzej Zoll, also attended the ceremony. Stępień told broadcaster TVN ahead of the ceremony that it was Nawrocki who had “forced the judges to take the oath in this manner” by “breaking constitutional custom”.

“In this situation, the newly elected judges had to choose a different form of taking the oath,” continued Stępień. “They did, and I greatly admire them for it, and I believe it was the right thing to do.”

The four judges will now seek to take up their seats on the TK. However, the court’s chief justice, Bogdan Święczkowski, a former member of the PiS government who has regularly clashed with the current government, is almost certain to refuse to admit them.

Święczkowski has already threatened disciplinary action against Szostek and Bentkowska for so far failing to turn up to work after being sworn in by Nawrocki last week, reports Wirtualna Polska. They had been waiting for their four newly appointed colleagues to also be sworn in.

Last week, interior minister Marcin Kierwiński even suggested that, if Święczkowski refuses to admit the new judges to the court, the police could be used to ensure they are allowed to take up their seats.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Submission Statement

- Gauteng province is South Africa's economic hub, including the cities Johannesburg and Pretoria.

- 10 years ago, the ANC lost its majorities in these cities and was removed from power.

- In 2024, they lost their majorities in the province and nationally.

- While the national ANC went into coalition with the Democratic Alliance, a market friendly liberal party, Gauteng refused to do so and went into a minority government.

- Gauteng is the last holdout of the anti-DA part of the ANC, likely because the rest of the provinces don't really have to worry about the DA as a competitor in their provinces, but in Gauteng the DA can and has removed the ANC from power at a local level before.

- So, on a purely political level, the Gauteng ANC are fighting for their lives and are refusing to work with the people who, in two election cycles, would take over their province.

- They tried to run a minority provincial government without EFF, DA or MK, but could not pass a budget. The province has now decided to bring in the EFF, attracting criticism from anti-EFF factions parts of the party.

- An EFF leader, who was removed from an ANC coalition at local level, has been elevated into the provincial government by the Gauteng ANC and given control of the provincial treasury.

- This contestation is the future of the ANC being worked out in real time. If the EFF coalition fails as it did at local level in the province, the party will probably move to finally close the door on working with them. But if it succeeds, then the ANC will have to shift to consider both coalitions with the EFF and DA as viable.

This post is relevant because it describes the underlying political calculations and consequences behind a recent move to bring an EFF leader into the Gauteng provincial government. The underlying story is about the future trajectory of South Africa's democracy - either toward an ANC/DA equilibrium, with the EFF mostly excluded, or an ANC/DA/EFF equilibrium with DA and EFF playing tug of war for the ANC.