Notes from Exile: Censorship and Constitutional Breakdown Is New Polish Reality

In recent days, Poland has been electrified by continued reports of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s attempts to unlawfully prevent President-elect Karol Nawrocki from taking office. These actions bear all the hallmarks of a constitutional coup. At the same time, on Friday, 25 July, the ruling left-liberal coalition moved to suspend the functioning of the National Broadcasting Council—a constitutionally mandated institution tasked with protecting freedom of speech and media pluralism. This action, too, constitutes a direct assault on the Constitution.

Since December 2023, Poland under Tusk’s so-called “militant democracy” has become a testing ground for globalist lawlessness and a campaign of systemic, unprecedented erosion of the rule of law. One of its explicit targets has also been the National Broadcasting Council, a body standing in the way of imposing liberal censorship in Poland. Given the country’s historical experience of communist dictatorship and censorship, the institution responsible for issuing broadcasting licenses and safeguarding freedom of expression enjoys constitutionally protected independence. 

To eliminate it in practice, in 2024 members of the ruling coalition initiated proceedings before the State Tribunal against the Council’s Chairman, Maciej Świrski. The charges brought against him were absurd—including alleged delays in granting licenses to liberal media outlets and the failure to transfer subscription fees to public broadcasting companies. Yet in December 2023, public media had already been unlawfully and forcibly seized by the government, which prompted Świrski to deposit the funds with the court.

Remarkably, despite intense political pressure and repressive measures by Tusk’s liberal administration — including direct attacks on freedom of expression and media pluralism—the Polish media landscape has undergone a pronounced shift to the right over the past eighteen months. TV Republika, a conservative news channel, is now the most-watched news station in the country and the second-largest television channel overall. Together with the conservative wPolsce24 and the Catholic broadcaster TV Trwam, it commands a majority share of the news-viewing audience. There is no doubt that conservative media, which closely scrutinized the left-liberal government, were one of the key factors enabling Nawrocki’s electoral victory—a victory that signals the beginning of the end for Tusk’s government.