II Ogólnopolski Moot Court “Młodzi Cywiliści”

Polish civil law (prawo cywilne) is principally codified in the Kodeks cywilny of 23 April 1964, which entered into force on 1 January 1965 and replaced a patchwork of pre-war and post-war regulations, including the 1933 Code of Obligations and the 1946 unification decrees. The Code draws heavily on the continental European tradition, particularly German pandectist structure and French Napoleonic influences, and is divided into four books covering general provisions, ownership and other property rights, obligations, and inheritance. After 1989, the Code underwent extensive amendments to dismantle socialist-era restrictions on private property, restore freedom of contract, and align Polish private law with European Community and later European Union acquis. The core contemporary debates revolve around the tension between maintaining doctrinal coherence of a mid-20th-century codification and accommodating modern realities: consumer protection (especially after the CJEU's Dziubak ruling on Swiss-franc mortgage loans), digital contracts, liability for artificial intelligence, climate-related property claims, and the harmonisation of succession and family-property regimes across EU borders. The Civil Law Codification Commission (Komisja Kodyfikacyjna Prawa Cywilnego), reactivated in 2024, is once again drafting proposals for a recodification, though scholars remain divided between incremental amendment and a full new code. For moot court purposes, prawo cywilne today is shaped by a constant dialogue between the Polish Supreme Court (Sąd Najwyższy), the Constitutional Tribunal, and the Court of Justice of the EU, particularly on consumer credit, unfair contractual terms, and tort liability of public authorities. Recent landmark issues include abusive clauses in CHF-indexed loans, compensation for wrongful deprivation of liberty, neighbour-law disputes over smog and emissions, and the civil-law consequences of the rule-of-law crisis affecting judicial appointments.

Polish civil procedure (postępowanie cywilne) is governed by the Kodeks postępowania cywilnego of 17 November 1964, which entered into force together with the Civil Code in 1965. The Code regulates contentious and non-contentious proceedings, enforcement, arbitration, and cross-border judicial cooperation. Since the political transformation of 1989, it has been amended more than two hundred times, reflecting successive efforts to accelerate proceedings, introduce electronic communication, expand mediation, and integrate EU instruments such as the Brussels I bis Regulation, the European Order for Payment, and the Service and Evidence Regulations. The most significant recent overhaul was the comprehensive amendment of 4 July 2019, which reintroduced separate proceedings in commercial matters, imposed strict preclusion rules on evidence, expanded the role of preparatory hearings, and recalibrated appellate review. Further amendments in 2021-2023 entrenched remote hearings introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, broadened electronic service through the information portal of the courts, and refined consumer-protection procedures. Despite these reforms, average proceedings remain lengthy, and the European Court of Human Rights continues to find violations of Article 6 ECHR in Polish cases concerning excessive duration. Current flashpoints include the constitutional status of judges appointed through the reformed National Council of the Judiciary (KRS) and the validity of judgments they issue, the boundaries of res judicata after CJEU rulings, the procedural treatment of abusive clauses raised ex officio, class actions and group proceedings, and the digitalisation of enforcement. Mooters will encounter recurring tensions between procedural efficiency, the right to be heard, equality of arms, and effective judicial protection under Article 47 of the EU Charter.