The First Steps of the Polish Legal System Towards the Digitisation of Registration Proceedings – the Analysis and the Assessment of the Draft Act on the National Court Register, with the Consideration of the Compliance Thereof with the Directive...
The First Steps of the Polish Legal System Towards the Digitisation of Registration Proceedings – the Analysis and the Assessment of the Draft Act on the National Court Register, with the Consideration of the Compliance Thereof with the Directive...

Summary/Abstract: In Autumn 2017 the Ministry of Justice submitted a draft amendment to the Act of August 20, 1997 on the National Court Register (hereinafter, “Draft”), announcing its “digital revolution”. The legislator’s intention was to transfer the register into the reality of the21st century. Moreover, the amendments addressed the necessity of implementation of the directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2017/1132/EU of 14 June 2017 on some aspects of the companies law (Journal of Laws EU L 169 of 30 June 2017) in the scope of regulations concerning the registers interconnection system into the Polish legal system.The draft amendments relate to, among others: (i) introduction of the obligation to submitall applications with the National Court Register’s register of entrepreneurs by way of the ICTsystem; (ii) electronization of registration files, as well as (iii) introduction of the obligation to submit financial statements in the electronic form. Apart from that, the Draft provides for (iv)the creation of the Central Repository of Electronic Excerpts of Notary Deeds. The aims setforth in items (i) -(iv) may be, in principle, viewed as a right step towards digitization. However,it should be remembered that the legislator’s goal is for the entire digitization of registration proceedings to take place in stages. Thus, time intervals for the introduction of relevant legislation amendments (executive regulations) and technical amendments (preparation of formspecimens, implementation of changes to the ICT systems in courts) are assumed. Therefore,the Draft should be assessed as the first step. However, it comes as a surprise that Article 19 ofthe Draft provides for the possibility of entering into the Central Registration and Information on Business, and simultaneous public disclosing of, information on arrears in the enforcement of outstanding maintenance payments exceeding 6 months. Leaving aside the moral nature of such demeanor, the register is not intended for the disclosure of debt and it is maintained only for record keeping purposes. Doubts also arise whether the disclosure of such information meets the condition of necessity in a democratic state of law, as defined in Article 51 section 2 of the Constitution.

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