EVOLUTION OF PROCEEDINGS IN MATTERS OF LABOUR LAW IN POLAND

Abstract

A debate regarding the shape and form of civil procedural law and the optimum structure and systematics of the Code of Civil Procedure has been ongoing in Poland for years. Nowadays, labour law cases are examined in separate proceedings – a variation on trial. Deviations from general procedural rules tie in with the peculiarities of such litigation, its social importance and gravity, and the nature of the legal relationship subject to protection. Special-purpose legal regulations have been designed to protect the employee. They augment the procedural position of the subject recognised as the so-called vulnerable party in litigation with the employer. The scope of introducing separate proceedings is determined by intricate and complicated definitions of phrases such as “labour law cases” and “employee”.

Preserving such a judicial trial model will encounter criticism in Poland, given the postulate of uniformity in examining civil law cases, and the belief that separate proceedings in labour law cases are a relic of previous structures (so-called socialist trials) and the contemporaneous political system in Poland, not to mention the confidence that the model in question does not correspond with contemporary reality or labour market requirements. An additional argument in favour of eliminating the solution involved the introduction of other separate (subject-dispersed) proceedings in cases involving consumers in 2023, also designed to boost the so-called vulnerable party in judicial proceedings. Regardless, one ought to bear in mind that substantive law provisions are regulated by a separate law (the Labour Code), whereas the need for legal and procedural protection for employees in Poland remains essential, as duly proven by the complex and multi-stage evolution of related legal regulations over the last several dozen years.