TOMASZ PRZYBECKI
11-01-2011

Agrarian reform – NSA resolution restores administrative route for recovery of estates

On January 10, 2011, the Supreme Administrative Court adopted a resolution (ref. I OPS 3/10), which presented the position that par. 5 section 1 Decree of the Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform of March 1, 1945. On the implementation of the decree of the Polish Committee for National Liberation of September 6, 1944. on the carrying out of the agrarian reform (Journal of Laws No. 10, item 51, as amended) can still be the legal basis for initiating and conducting proceedings before the governor to determine that the landed property or part thereof did not fall under the provisions of the agrarian reform decree.

The resolution is of fundamental importance to the heirs of former landowners, who, since the Constitutional Court’s March 1, 2010 decision in the P 108/08 case, have been condemned to civil litigation, with many inconveniences. Analysis of the above resolution of the Supreme Administrative Court will help answer the question of what path these owners should now take as to

whose governors have validly discontinued administrative proceedings by referring them to the courts. What is at stake is the resubmission of the application, the resumption of the proceedings, or the revocation of the discontinuance decision. For more information, see press coverage.