Abstract

The article concerns a precedential Supreme Court judgment with respect to the law of evidence in civil litigation. The Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a secret recording of a conversation between one of the litigants and a third party, who subsequently testified as a witness in the case, was admissible as evidence. First of all, the Supreme Court held that restrictions on the evidentiary use of a secret recording of a conversation done by a party thereto may arise in connection with the contents of the recording regarding privacy of the recorded party, as well as the circumstances in which the recording took place. No consent of the recorded person to use the recording as evidence in civil litigation warrants an examination whether the evidence – given its contents or manner in which it has been obtained – does not violate the constitutional right to privacy (Art. 47 of the Polish Constitution) of the recorded person, and if so, whether the violation can be justified by the need to ensure the right to court (Art. 45 of the Constitution) for another person.