The Sejm of the Republic of Poland has begun work on a draft bill amending the Code of Civil Procedure. The changes are intended primarily to streamline proceedings and prevent the abuse of procedural rights by disloyal debtors. Legislative work on the bill is currently being conducted by the Special Committee for Codification Amendments.
Below is a list of the most important changes planned.
New provisions regarding general provisions on jurisdiction, procedural documents, costs, exclusion of a judge, appointment of experts and regulating the issue of set-off:
- The jurisdiction of the District Court in the field of property rights disputes would begin only with lawsuits whose value in dispute exceeds one hundred thousand zlotys.
- A motion to exclude a judge who is not a member of the adjudicating panel will become inadmissible.
- The court will decide ex officio on the interest on the amount awarded for reimbursement of costs.
- A document submitted by a professional attorney will need to contain separate sections containing statements, motions, including evidence and allegations, as well as a separate justification. If the justification includes evidentiary motions that are not submitted elsewhere in the document, they will not produce the consequences associated with their submission by the party under the law.
- The basis for a setoff defense will be not only the defendant's claim arising from the same legal relationship as the claim asserted by the plaintiff, but also a claim for repayment of a performance fulfilled by one of the joint and several debtors against the other co-debtors. An exception will be a situation in which the defendant's claim is undisputed, established by a final court judgment, an arbitration award, a settlement reached before a court or arbitration tribunal, a court-approved settlement reached before a mediator, or substantiated by a document confirming its recognition by the plaintiff.
- Before appointing an expert, it will be possible to allow him or her to familiarise himself or herself with the case files in order to expedite the proceedings, estimate costs or determine the deadline for issuing an opinion.
Changes regarding the delivery of correspondence, preparatory sessions, trial plans, closed sessions, judgments and the methods of appealing against them, as well as separate and enforcement proceedings will be the subject of the next article.
