The seller’s claims regarding the defective nature of the thing sold – a new quality?

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The Consumer Rights Directive (CRD) required businesses across the EU to comply with its requirements from 13 June 2014. EU Member States have takenvarious approaches to implementing the new legislation. The Polish Act on Consumer Rights, which transposes the CRD, came into force on 25 December2014.  The newly introduced Article 576 (1) of the CC provides that, if the thing did not have the characteristics it should have had in accordance with its intended purpose or in accordance with assurances made in public, or has been issued in an incomplete condition, then the seller that incurred the costs as a result of the consumer exercising its rights under a warranty for physical defects, may request the redress of the damage suffered from one of the previous sellers, as a result of the actions or omissions of which the thing became defective.

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Posted on by Aleksandra Kunkiel-Kryńska in Consumer Law

A preliminary question from the Polish Supreme Court to the CJEU (case C-70/15)

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In its ruling of 27 November 2014 (case number: V CSK 487/13), the Supreme Court (Civil Chamber) asked a preliminary question to the CJEU. This is worth mentioning, as the decision in question is not only the first case of the Supreme Court revoking the preliminary procedure in civil matters, but also the first one in its jurisprudence at all. The question concerns two issues of the European civil procedure regulation.

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Posted on by Mateusz Grochowski in Civil Procedure

Freedom of religion vs. airport security checks

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The Court adjudicated the cassation claim of the claimant, challenging the judgment of the Court of Appeals in Warsaw rejecting the claim of the claimant – a Sikh – alleging the infringement of his personal rights. During the security check, he demanded to be able to take off his turban in a secluded place without the presence of other guards, but this was refused by the officials in charge. Upon this ground he asserted the encroachment of his freedom of conscience and religion – and hence, an infringement of Articles 23 and 24 of the Civil Code of Poland (specifying the concept of personal rights and remedies in the case of their violation).

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Posted on by Joanna Buchalska in General Issues

Specific nature of Polish Group Action under the Law of 17 December 2009

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Group action is a new institution to Polish civil procedure that has been introduced by The Act on Asserting Claims in Class Proceedings of 17 December 2009, the “Polish Class Action Act”. The act came into force on 19 July 2010 and is a step towards unifying Polish law with European Union law. This act is the main regulation, but is not all-encompassing. Issues not addressed in this act are regulated by the Code of Civil Procedure of 1964 according to Article 24 of the Act (the Act on Asserting Claims in Class Proceedings of 17 December 2009). Under this regulation there are certain certification criteria that must be met to bring a class action into court. In this paper I will briefly present crucial aspects of the Polish regulation, such as the certification criteria, the scope of application, requirements for monetary claims, class representatives, stages of proceedings, remedies, and the costs of class actions.

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Posted on by Monika Adamin in Civil Procedure

Jewish Property Restitution – Failed Measures

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Restitution or compensation for Jewish property nationalised by the communist regime in Poland after WW2 is an ever-recurring issue of public debate, fuelled by repeated appeals from Jewish organisations and certain foreign politicians for the enactment of relevant provisions. Due to numerous economic, social and political considerations, successive Polish governments after 1989 have been rather reluctant to respond to these demands. However, contrary to popular belief, regulations on this matter do exist and date back to the times of communism, when the regime itself decided to face the problem and attempted to solve it on both an international and a domestic level.

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Posted on by Jakub Petkiewicz in Property Law

Jurisdictional immunity of the state in cases involving serious human rights abuses

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In a decision of 29 October 2010 (IV CSK 465/09), the Polish Supreme Court examined the case of Wincjusz Natoniewski, a survivor of the Second World War, who instituted civil proceedings against the Federal Republic of Germany claiming compensation for injuries he suffered as a consequence of acts perpetrated by German armed forces in 1944. This case is one of many in which survivors of large-scale armed operations against civilians and other barbaric acts seek compensation from the state. Such cases involving serious human rights violations call into question the issue of a state’s entitlement to immunity.

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Posted on by Agnieszka Gołąb in Civil Procedure

Law Applicable to Actio Pauliana before Polish Supreme Court Judgment of the Supreme Court – Civil Chamber of 29 November 2012, Docket No. II CSK 96/12

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The dispute arose from a settlement agreement concluded before the German court on 18 November 2008, between the German national Richard L. (claimant) and Polish national Katarzyna D. (defendant), both domiciled in Germany. The defendant agreed she would transfer to the claimant her immovable property situated in Poland in exchange for €40,000. The settlement agreement had been declared enforceable in Poland yet the defendant did not perform her obligation and instead, she concluded a deed of gift with her father, Henryk D. domiciled in Poland (third-party defendant), concerning the same real property. Consequently, the claimant sought to declare the deed of gift ineffective in respect to him pursuant to Article 527 of the Polish Civil Code which establishes the basis for actio pauliana. Being unsuccessful in lower courts, claimant filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court.

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Posted on by Michał König in International

XIX International Congress of Comparative Law in Vienna – Complete Polish Reports

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We are very glad to present the complete edition of Polish reports for the last year’s XIX International Congress of Comparative Law in Vienna (edited by Professor Biruta Lewaszkiewicz-Petrykowska). It contains studies covering different areas of Polish legal system – among them selected problems of private law, its interplay with fundamental rigths and questions of civil procedure. The material has been published by the Łódź University Press. Thanks to its courtesy we enclose below the full electronic version of the book.

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Posted on by Mateusz Grochowski in General Issues

Is the sacrament anointing the sick without authorisation an infringement of the personal good?

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In a judgment of 20 September 2013, II CSK 1/13, the Supreme Court addressed the problem of granting the sacrament of anointing the sick to a non-believer. The claimant was a patient at the Independent Public Clinical Hospital in the Cardiac Surgery Clinic. After the operation he was placed into a pharmacologically induced coma. Remaining in this state, he was granted the sacrament in question by a priest who was a chaplain contracted by the Hospital. The claimant learned about it while checking the medical documentation after leaving the hospital.

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Posted on by Joanna Buchalska in General Issues

For the freedom of art, freedom of law and freedom to err

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Art cannot exist without freedom. And where freedom exists, art experiments must be allowed – experiments more or less in line with expectations and what viewers of art are accustomed to. There must be an acceptance of searching, allowing not only for wandering the “dirt track” where nobody has ever seen art, along with scandals where art has long been present. However, everything has its limits. Even the freedom of art. For art, these flexible limits set out the aesthetic canons of the era and the boundaries of law. The aesthetic canons protect the sensitivity of art viewers, while the law protects other values, recognised by the law as more important than the freedom of creativity. If these canons and values are breached by art, then the boundaries within which it is allowed are described by law and set out by the courts of law.

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Posted on by ACUS in General Issues