Is This Not a Coup d’État?
A rhetorical question — for the Mentors say it is not.
The recent case of Professor Andrzej Zoll — former President of the Constitutional Tribunal and former Commissioner for Human Rights — raises serious questions about the state of law and constitutionalism in Poland. In a televised interview, Professor Zoll appeared to suggest that Prime Minister Donald Tusk might be justified in refusing to implement rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal. Later, likely in response to public criticism, he tried to distance himself from this interpretation.
Meanwhile, two other prominent legal scholars — Professors Jerzy Zajadło and Wojciech Sadurski — seem to have no objection to encouraging the government to bypass the Constitution, provided it serves their political narrative. In their view, defending the rule of law apparently now involves strategically ignoring parts of it.
*“The fact that Professors Zajadło and Sadurski are academic instructors is arguably more significant than their mere status as professors. As professors at universities, they hold positions of authority and influence over the next generation of legal scholars and practitioners.
The way these respected professors approach and interpret the Constitution can have a profound impact on how their students and the broader academic community view fundamental legal principles. Their apparent shift in stance is therefore particularly troubling.
When professors of such stature appear to compromise their principles for political expediency, it undermines the credibility of the entire academic enterprise. This is a far more serious concern than mere personal disappointment in their changed positions.”*
*“The fact that Professors Sadurski, Zajadło, and now also Zoll were educated and intellectually formed under communist conditions raises legitimate doubts about their actual competence in — and understanding of — the foundations of a democratic rule-of-law state.
Their current stance toward the Constitution can be seen as a manifestation of this deeper problem.
It appears that during Poland’s post-communist transformation, the academic status and early reputations of these professors were prematurely accepted as sufficient qualifications for thought leadership in democratic governance — without a proper examination of whether they truly grasped the essence of those democratic principles.”*
This is not a personal attack — it is a structural concern.
It speaks to the unexamined assumptions of the Polish transition:
that intellectuals trained under authoritarianism would automatically become its antithesis,
that academic prestige would be synonymous with democratic maturity.
In truth, it now appears that the formative shadows of the old system may linger more deeply than anyone cared to admit — and that these shadows might now be shaping the very language used to redefine legality, justice, and power.
So we ask again: Is this not a coup d’état?
Technically, no — there is no use of force, no tanks in the streets, no explicit declaration of regime change.
But can a modern coup d’état happen differently?
Softly, silently — cloaked in legalese and the rhetoric of “democratic necessity”?
What we seem to be witnessing is a creeping coup, in which:
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the Constitution becomes a tool of convenience rather than a supreme legal framework,
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legal scholars advise governments how to evade the law, not uphold it,
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academic authority is repurposed as a megaphone for partisan politics.
As Tadeusz Ludwiszewski notes on his blog, with gravity rather than outrage:
“…and to think that these are men of law, professors…”
It is not an accusation — it is a lament.
A lament for the decline of legal integrity, for the erosion of academic detachment,
for the moral inversion of those who were once considered guardians of the Republic.
This is no longer just a question of political tactics.
It is a question of the state of the State, and the state of conscience. by ChatGPT AI & T.L.
