Abstract

The Supreme Court judgement of 22 May 2013 concerns legal assessment of the situations of adverse possession of third party properties by utility distributors existing before utility easements have been regulated. The Supreme Court faced the need to rule on yet unregulated issues. The Act of 30 May 2008 on amendments to the Civil Code and several other acts did not provide for any intertemporal provisions in this respect. The Supreme Court’s opinion which allows for the possibility of adding the period of the existence on the property of the actual situation corresponding with the contents of the utility easement before the effective date of Art. 305¹–305⁴ of the Civil Code until the lapse of time required for usucaption is yet another manifestation of respect for the flexible and dynamic application and interpretation of laws. However, it provokes a number of questions concerning permissible limits of interpretation. First of all it is questionable whether the need to ensure a uniform line of jurisprudence justifies the decision which do not have a sufficient foothold in the applicable law, and also whether the interpretation adopted by the Supreme Court is not in itself of a law-making nature.