Orzecznictwo Sądu Najwyższego
Judicial decisions of the Supreme Court

Summary/Abstract: Do employees whose employment contracts have been terminated on disciplinary grounds without observance of the period stipulated in article 52(2) of the Labour Code (i.e. a one-month period from the date the employer became aware of the circumstances that justified termination of the contract) always win in court? What position has the Supreme Court taken with regard to discrepancies in registration courts’ practice concerning admissibility of the so-called ‘improper’ joint proxy, i.e. the practice of making a reservation that the commercial proxy may only act jointly with a member of the Management Board? Finally, what significance for the validity of procedural actions taken in the course of criminal proceedings does the composition of the court have if the composition is improper for hearing only a portion of the alleged criminal acts in a case submitted ‘objectively’ (i.e. a case that includes multiple criminal acts)? Among many other vital matters, the aforementioned issues have been the subject of the latest Supreme Court judgments. Special attention should be paid to a ruling of fundamental importance for commercial trading that involves commercial-law companies, contained in the resolution of a seven-judge panel of the Supreme Court of January 30, 2015, which negates the legality of the practice of granting improper joint proxy. Also important, the construction adopted in this ruling does not apply – in accordance with the Supreme Court’s stipulation – to the assessment of the effects of legal transactions executed prior to January 30, 2015, by proxies who lacked proper authorization. As well worth noting is one of the most recent statements by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court in which it asserted that the proceedings as a whole are not deemed invalid if the court, in a case that has been submitted objectively, was improperly composed only in relation to some of the criminal acts tried. This article is devoted, inter alia, to a broader discussion of the aforementioned judgments.

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