The Concept of “Workplace” under the Polish Civil Procedure Code as a Place of Service of Civil Case Pleadings/Court Papers on a Natural Person. Remarks on the Law as It Stands and as It should Stand

Abstract

The correctness and effectiveness of service of documents in civil procedure depends on a number of requirements, which also include a correctly defined place of delivery. Pursuant to Art. 135, para. 1 of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure (CCP), the service of procedural documents in civil cases on the addressee who is a natural person shall be effected at the place of addressee’s residence, work or where the addressee is found in person. The deliberations on this institution presented herein lead to the conclusion that this term is both autonomous and vague, because after the once the wording of Art. 126, para. 2 CCP was changed by the amendment of 2 July 2004, it has lost the value of addressee’s identification. The introduction of an appropriate statutory provision to define this place as the place of service of a pleading/court paper could raise doubts as to the compliance of such a regulation with the constitutional principle of equality, of the parties to civil proceedings before the law (Art. 32 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland). As part of a proposal for the law as it should stand, it is worth considering to preserve the requirement of specification of the workplace as the place for the service of the pleading/court paper, since the adjudication authority does not know ex officio the occupation and workplace of the party concerned, and the party itself is not obliged to specify such address in the pleading. The admissibility of imposing on the adjudicating authority an obligation to determine the place of residence of the addressee of a pleading should also be excluded. On the other hand, it would be a more appropriate solution to introduce an obligation for a procedural party to precisely specify the address for service in the contents of the first pleading filed, otherwise subsequent pleadings will remain in the case file with the effect as if actually served. It should also be considered to introduce a specific notion grid for the purposes of document service, which would ensure the effectiveness of such delivery by means of widely defined designations of the proper place of service. The carelessness and inconsistency of the legislature in the use of vague concepts with different scopes of application does not contribute to the precise determination of the place of service.