At the request of the Polish Bar Council, Maciej Obrębski prepared an opinion on the parliamentary bill to amend the Code of Civil Procedure and certain other acts (parliamentary paper No. 728).
The draft amendment is intended to make it easier for people who have been harmed by anonymous posts on the Internet to pursue their claims. The amendment is to introduce a new separate procedure into the Code of Civil Procedure – in cases concerning the protection of personal interests against persons of unknown identity. The author of the bill calls this institution a ‘blind lawsuit’.
It is based on the possibility of filing a lawsuit for the protection of personal rights without indicating the name and surname and address of the defendant. This data would be determined within 7 days of filing the lawsuit by the district court competent to hear the case. Once the defendant’s identity had been established, the case would proceed under general rules.
In the conclusions of an opinion prepared at the request of the Polish Bar Council, Maciej Obrębski indicates that the bill attempts to solve a significant social problem, which is the violation of personal rights on the Internet by people who do not disclose their identity. However, the draft law does not take into account EU regulations, including the Digital Services Act or the SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) directive.
Moreover, the detailed solutions provided for in the draft law generally concern violations of personal interests committed in text form (e.g. comments or posts on online forums). This leaves unprotected persons whose personal rights have been violated in other ways, such as through audio or audio-video recordings.
The opinion also draws attention to the fact that the mechanism leading to an automatic determination of the data of persons posting entries on the Internet may lead to a violation of the rights of persons expressing justified criticism in the public debate. This creates the risk of abuse of the institution of ‘strike out’ for purposes unrelated to the actual protection of personal interests.
The full text of the opinion can be found on the websites of Polish Parliament (Sejm) and the Institute of Legislation of the Supreme Bar Council.
