The epidemic caused by the Covid-19 virus has significantly introduced changes in the search for safe solutions for people-to-people contact. These changes also affected the courts and the mode of court hearings, in order to ensure the greatest possible safety for the parties to the proceedings and court employees. In this situation, the best way to limit direct contact was the possibility of using electronic communication methods.

Legal basis

Amendment to the Polish Act of March 2, 2020 on special solutions related to the prevention, counteraction and combating of COVID-19, other infectious diseases and the emergencies caused by them, implemented by two acts of May 14, 2020 and May 28, 2021, allowed for the possibility of holding court hearings in Polish courts with using means of distance communication. The change resulting directly from article 15 zzs¹ of the Polish Act of 2 March 2020 allowed for the possibility of participating in a remote hearing from a place other than the court, because until now the Polish Code of Civil Procedure allowed for the possibility of conducting a remote hearing, but the persons participating in it had to be present in the court building. Pursuant to article 15zzs¹ point 1 of the Polish Act of 2 March 2020, during the period of the epidemic threat or epidemic state announced due to COVID-19 and within one year of the last of them being recalled in cases examined under the provisions of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure, court hearings or open sessions are held with the use of technical devices enabling them to be carried out at a distance with the simultaneous direct transmission of image and sound, except that the people participating in them do not have to be in the court building, unless holding a hearing or a public hearing without the use of the above devices causes excessive health risk to the participants.[1]

Conducting remote hearings- modes of proceedings

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