Separate Proceedings with the Participation of Consumers - Strengthening the Legal Protection of Consumers in Civil Procedure or Complicating the Examination of Cases with Their Participation?

Abstract

The aim of the article is to evaluate the introduction of new separate proceedings with the participation of consumers into the Civil Procedure Code. The author analyzes the scope of application of the new regulation. This new separate proceeding is conducted in cases of claims of consumers against entrepreneurs and claims of entrepreneurs against consumers. The author points out that the concept of consumer has a wide meaning in Polish civil law, so the scope of application of this separate proceeding is also wide. Separate proceeding with participation of consumers contains three separate legal regulations. One of them is regulation of territorial jurisdiction of the court in cases with participation of consumers, which should be positively assessed. Another provision of this new separate procedure concerns the concentration of the procedural material. This institution raises objections of doctrine because it can violate the equality of the parties of civil procedure. Third regulation concerns the rules of reimbursement, which can be applied if the entrepreneur does not attempt to settle the dispute amicably or avoids participating in such settlement or participates in it in bad faith. The author questions the necessity of introducing a new separate procedure with the participation of consumers, since it contains only three specific regulations, while the reason for introducing a new separate procedure is the large number of separate regulations in relation to the general regulations. The multiplicity of separate proceedings in the Civil Procedure Code causes their concurrence, and the conflict rule, which constitutes about the priority of proceedings with the participation of consumers, will not resolve this concurrence. Therefore, the author comes to the conclusion that this new separate procedure will not strengthen legal protection of consumers in civil procedure, but will complicate examination of cases with their participation.