Court costs of an extended civil trial – or perhaps a division of risks as in the case of valorization?

In accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the court should counteract any delays in the proceedings and strive to ensure that the decision is made at the first hearing, if this is possible without detriment to the clarification of the case.

Similar norms, guaranteeing the efficiency of the process, can be found in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland (Article 45) or the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 6). The parties are entitled to, among other things, a complaint about the excessive length of the proceedings based on separate provisions (in the event of its acceptance – an amount from PLN 2,000 to PLN 20,000), or, alternatively, claims based on general principles (Article 417 of the Civil Code).

Perhaps an additional mechanism for balancing court costs in the party-State Treasury relationship (court fees, advances) in the context of a prolonged trial, regardless of the principles of cost sharing (generally, the losing party bears these costs at the end of the case) would be worth considering. Namely, would it not be justified, even if only partially and automatically, for the State Treasury (Court) to cover the costs in a trial that lasts excessively long, regardless of the aforementioned rights (complaint about excessive length)?

This could be done through partial payment of court fees as part of the proceedings as a % of the fee due for an appeal or cassation appeal, % of the costs of expert opinions prepared in the case, or possibly through the obligation to appropriately reduce the fees in the final decision – when it is known that the case is already ongoing or has been ongoing for x years. In such a case, it would be necessary to apply an objective time limit, the exceedance of which would require an appropriate reduction / balancing of the fees.

Of course, the course of the proceedings is also influenced by the actions of the parties, participants in the proceedings, as stipulated, among others, in Art. 6 § 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Therefore, it would be worth considering setting a top-down ceiling of costs borne by the State Treasury (%), analogously, for example, to the division of risks between the ordering party and the contractor of construction works as in the case of price increases and valorization of the contractual remuneration for works carried out under public procurement.

The point would be that when resolving a court case, along with the excessive “increase” in the time of the proceedings, the division of court costs settled in the relationship between the party and the State Treasury (Court) would balance out, regardless of the decision in the case. As an example (50% division): 1) appeal fee PLN 100,000, appeal lost – the party pays only PLN 50,000 of the fee (PLN 50,000 is returned to it); 2) appeal fee PLN 100,000, appeal won – the winning party receives a refund of PLN 50,000 of the fee, and the other PLN 50,000 is paid by the losing opponent.

Of course, the duration of the proceedings is influenced by various issues – including fundamental ones such as the organization of the justice system, which is not dependent on the parties. Therefore, the failure to quickly consider the case at the initial costs of the proceedings provided for in the Act, regardless of the cause, could be compensated additionally in the manner proposed above.