Abstract

The Civil Law Codification Commission, chaired by Professor Marek Safjan, commenced its activities in May 2024. The previous Codification Commission was dissolved in December 2015. Between 2017 and 2023, substantive and procedural civil law was not properly modernized, and amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure and the Civil Code were piecemeal, poorly thought out, chaotic, and systemically inconsistent, often introduced without consultations with experts. The current Commission focuses on restoring the appropriate structure and character of codified regulations. It devotes significant attention to reforming procedural civil law and organizing the private substantive law system by modernizing its institutions within the existing Civil Code. In less than a year after the reactivation of the Civil Law Codification Commission, priority has been given to improving a draft of the amendment to the Civil Code, previously prepared at the Ministry of Justice, which aims to replace the institution of legal incapacitation with a supported decision-making model. Also presented was a concise draft of the law on protecting participants in public debates against evidently unfounded claims or abusive legal proceedings (so-called Anti-SLAPP law). Additionally, regulations aimed at streamlining and accelerating court proceedings in so-called Swiss franc denominated loan cases have been expeditiously drafted. The Commission also supplemented the bankruptcy and restructuring law regulations with overdue EU law implementations and completed the first phase of the reform of the Code of Civil Procedure. The reform, covering approximately 200 regulations, aims to restore proper significance and efficiency to this codification. Work on modernizing regulations concerning the form of wills is also nearing completion. The greatest challenge facing the Commission is digitalization, standardization, and concentration of civil proceedings.