Further significant changes in civil procedure are upon us!

On 1 July 2023 a comprehensive amendment to the Polish Code of Civil Procedure, i.e., the Act of 9 March 2023 amending the Act – Polish Code of Civil Procedure and certain other acts (Journal of Laws of 31 March 2023, item 614), enters into force.

According to the justification to the draft of the amending Act, new regulation seeks simplification of the existing procedures, which is expected to reduce the workload of courts and shorten the duration of proceedings. The amendments also aim to facilitate parties’ and attorneys’ contact with the court, to make consumer’s assertion of his or her rights in court more convenient and to fill the gaps in the existing law. In any case, the amendment of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure is intended to address the concerns raised by the legal community regarding the application of previous, complex amendment of 2019.

The most significant changes are as follows:

New regulations on the Value of Subject Matter of the Dispute, i.e. Article 17 point 4 of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure

The legislator decided to increase the value of the subject matter of the dispute, which determines the jurisdiction of the district court as the court having material competence in the first instance. Thus, the jurisdiction of the district courts includes, amongst others, property rights cases in which the value of the subject matter of the dispute exceeds one hundred thousand zlotys. The previous threshold of the value of the subject matter of the dispute determining the jurisdiction of the district court having material competence has been in force from 5 February 2005 and, as noted by the legislator, meanwhile Poland has joined the European Union and all economic factors, including GDP and the amount of average renumeration in the national economy, significantly increased. 

INTEREST ON LITIGATION COSTS – Article 98 § 1¹ of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure

Following the amendment, to the amount awarded as reimbursement of litigation costs shall be added interest in the amount of statutory interest for delay in the fulfilment of the monetary benefit, for the period from the judgement, by which it was awarded, becoming final until the date of payment. If the judgement is final upon its issuance, the interest is due for the period after one week from the date of issuance of the judgment until the date of payment and, if such a judgement is subject to service ex officio, for the period after one week from the date of its service to the party obliged to pay until the date of payment. The court rules on the obligation to pay interest ex officio. Up to now, a doubt has arisen in the jurisprudence as to whether the decision on awarding interest should be pronounced in the operative part of the judgement and, moreover, the lack of pronouncement in this regard in the operative part of the judgement could also be misleading with regard to rights and obligations of a party not represented by a professional attorney.

MUTUAL SERVICE BETWEEN PROFFESIONAL ATTORNEYS – Article 132 § 1 sentence 2 of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure

Up to date, in the course of the proceedings, professional attorneys serving copies of pleadings to one another, included in the body of the pleading filed with the court a statement confirming that the copy of the pleading was served on the other party or a statement confirming that such a copy was dispatch to the other party by registered letter. In this context, interpretative doubts have arisen as to the observance of the time limit for filing a pleading in the form of a postal package. The discrepancies result from the fact that the “registered letter” includes, according to some interpretations, solely letters of weight not exceeding 2000 g, and therefore it does not include postal packages. In view of the above, the legislator abandoned the reference to the types of postal items (within the meaning of the Postal Law), in favour of assuming that dispatching a postal item of any type at a post office of an operator providing universal postal services is equivalent to lodging it with the court.

PLEADINGS LODGED BY A PARTY REPRESENTED BY A PROFFESSIONAL ATTORNEY – Article 128¹  of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure

The amendment of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure introduces a new provision, i.e., Article 128¹. Pursuant to this Article, a pleading lodged by a party represented by a professional attorney should contain explicitly distinguishable statements, claims and motions including for evidence. If the pleading contains a justification, motions for evidence, raised only in this justification, do not produce the effects, which the Act attaches to the submission of those motions by a party. The legislator’s aim was to motivate attorneys to formulate pleadings in a concise manner. As indicated by the legislator it is a common practice to submit motions for evidence exclusively in the justification of a pleading, which in turn may lead to its omission. Moreover, the clarity and comprehensibility of the arguments in the pleading reflects in the time spent by the judge on studying the pleading and, on a macro scale, in the courts’ increased efficiency.

CONSUMER PROCEEDINGS - Article 458¹⁴–458¹⁶ of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure

The amendment of the Act introduces to the civil procedure a consumer proceeding. This is a new type of separate proceedings within a lawsuit, regulated by Articles 458¹⁴–458¹⁶ of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure. Its main objective is to increase the consumers’ legal protection by facilitating them to assert and defend their rights against entrepreneurs in the court. The consumer will be entitled to bring an action against an entrepreneur in the court having jurisdiction over the consumer’s place of residence, which in turn is intended to guarantee a broader exercise of a constitutional right to court. On the other hand, the entrepreneur is obliged to refer to all claims and evidence in the statement of claim (statement of defence), within a time limit set by the presiding judge, which will not be shorter than one week, with the possibility of setting a different time limit depending on the circumstances of the case. The consequence of referring to claims and evidence in violation of above rules will be their omission. The amended provisions entitle the court to charge the entrepreneur with the costs of the lawsuit in whole or in part or even double them. The sanction may be applied if the entrepreneur has refrain from attempts to amicably resolve a dispute, has evaded participating in it or has participated in it in bad faith, which has led to unnecessary bringing an action or incorrect determination of the subject matter of the case. The new model of separate proceedings in the consumer cases intentionally introduces disproportion between the parties, which implements the principle of equal justice as between the entrepreneur and the consumer there is usually an actual economic disproportion in favour of the entrepreneur.

MINOR CASES – Article 508⁸ § 4 of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure

Pursuant to the new wording of Article 505⁸ § 4 of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure in the “minor” cases (Polish: sprawy bagatelne) it is possible to draft justification of the judgement with the content limited only to the legal basis of the judgement with reference to the provisions of law, which aims on limiting the court’s activities related to recognizing such cases. What is more, the value of the subject matter of the dispute was increased from PLN 1,000.00 to PLN 4,000.00.

ARBITRATION AGREEMENT – Article 1161¹ of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure

New regulation assumes that in the case pending before a court, the parties may submit a dispute to an arbitration court for resolution until the case is finally settled by the court. The court may discontinue the proceedings at the unanimous request of the parties, filed after the parties have entered into the arbitration agreement, unless the content of the arbitration agreement and circumstances of the case indicate that it would be contrary to the law, principals of social co-existence or would aim at the circumventing the law, or arbitration agreement is invalid or ineffective.

CONCLUSION

It should be noted that some changes introduced are a response to concerns raised by legal community, e.g. amendment of Article 132 § 1 sentence 2 of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure, regulating mutual service of pleadings between professional attorneys in the course of the case or amendment of Article 98 § 1¹ of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure obliging the Court to rule ex officio on interest on litigation costs. The abovementioned amendments should be assessed positively. However, on the other hand, as of July 2023, on the professional attorneys’ further obligations related to the construction of pleadings will be imposed, which may represent a manifestation of excessive procedural formalism and in extreme cases lead to violation of the constitutional right to court (see Article 128¹ of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure).

Eventually, the entry into force on 1 July 2023 of the Act of 9 March 2023 amending the Act – the Polish Code of Civil Procedure and certain other acts (Journal of Laws of 31 March 2023, item 614), will verify whether the new regulation will in fact simplify existing procedures and as effect reduce the workload of the courts and shorten duration of proceedings.

Last but not least is the fact that this amendment is not as controversial as the civil procedure amendments of 2019 but the changes introduced will significantly impact the conduct of civil proceedings in Poland.