We are going to Strasbourg on the amendment of the Code of Administrative Procedure
We filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of a client aggrieved by the 2021 amendment to the Code of Administrative Procedure.
The law firm has filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over Poland’s violation of the right to a court of law and the right to property as a result of the amendment to the provisions of the Code of Administrative Procedure regarding the provisions on annulment of administrative decisions in 2021.
The complaint relates to a case in which our client’s family was deprived of ownership of a business in Poznań between 1950 and 1960, without compensation. The client’s family had been seeking the return of the company since the 1990s. The client represented by the law firm, after many years of efforts, obtained decisions in 2021 declaring the invalidity of the flawed decisions of the people’s authorities, sharing in full the arguments of the law firm. The issuance of such decisions opened the way for him to file a lawsuit for damages against the State Treasury in connection with the official confirmation by the relevant public administration that the action of the people’s authorities was grossly inconsistent with the substantive law.
Unfortunately, in 2021, the Polish Parliament amended the Code of Administrative Procedure so that after 30 years from the issuance of a decision, a case for annulment cannot be initiated, and existing proceedings are subject to discontinuance.
This was also the fate of the decisions issued in favor of the Firm’s client – the case was discontinued at the second instance stage, and the discontinuance was eventually upheld by the Supreme Administrative Court. This deprived the client of the possibility of successfully filing a lawsuit for compensation for a defectively nationalized enterprise, for the Civil Code regulations have all along required that a person aggrieved by a decision of the people’s authorities submit in the process the relevant administrative decision stating this defectiveness (the so-called “preudicate”). These issues are not subject to examination by the ordinary court in accordance with established case law. This deprived the law firm’s client of the right to a court of law, as well as the right to property, strictly speaking, the right to compensation for illegally nationalized property.
In the opinion of the law firm, the amendment’s provisions are not only incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but also with the Polish Constitution. The question of the constitutionality of the legislation will be examined by the Constitutional Court in a case on the Ombudsman’s complaint, file reference K 2/22.