Police early on Saturday forcefully broke up an hours-long blockade of the exits of the Polish parliament by protesters who said ruling party lawmakers violated the constitution by illegally passing the budget for next year.
The head of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, left parliament in the early hours of Saturday after police used force to remove protesters blocking the exit from parliament, television footage showed.
"PiS has crossed a certain line and nothing will be the same again," Tomasz Siemoniak, deputy leader of opposition party Civic Platform said outside parliament.
Opposition party lawmaker Jerzy Meysztowicz told television network TVN24 that police used tear gas to disperse the protesters who tried to prevent the convoy of cars carrying Kaczynski and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo from leaving.
Warsaw police spokesman Mariusz Mrozek denied use of tear gas, but confirmed physical force was used to remove protesters.
Mrozek said the gathering before the parliament has been declared illegal starting from midnight.
Opposition parties accused PiS of violating the constitution after Speaker Marek Kuchcinski moved a key vote on next year's budget outside of the main chamber of parliament and blocked the media from recording the vote.
It was the first time since Poland's transition from communism in 1989 that a sitting of the lower chamber of parliament and a budget vote were held outside of the main chamber.
"The 'sitting' was illegal. Period. This is a constitutional crisis," Civic Platform head Grzegorz Schetyna said on social media.
The opposition said the budget vote was illegal as it was impossible to confirm that the required number of lawmakers was present.
"There is no proof that a quorum of lawmakers was present. We suspect that people who were not allowed to vote took part," leader of the opposition Nowoczesna party Ryszard Petru said.
Before leaving parliament, Kaczynski said the vote was legal and involved the required number of MPs.
"What the opposition did was a scandal. And we were working," said PiS lawmaker Jaroslaw Zielinski.
But Civic Platform lawmakers said they had difficulties accessing the hall where PiS lawmakers voted.
"I was able to enter the hall only after pushing aside guards," Civic Platform (PO) lawmaker Slawomir Nitras said.
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