The Notion of Litigation Capacity in Polish Civil Proceedings Against the Background of Comparative Law

Abstract

The problems of this paper refer to comparative law considerations related to the notion of litigation capacity in civil proceedings in selected European legal systems so as to establish in an evaluative way the identities, differences and similarities, occurring between them. This research serves primarily to find new solutions aimed to improve Polish legal provisions with regard to litigation capacity. Thus, the legal definitions of the notion of litigation capacity formulated on the ground of German, Austrian, Swiss, Norwegian, Hungarian, Italian, Ukrainian, Czech, French and Polish systems of civil proceedings have been presented in the paper. Many attempts at defining the notion of litigation capacity in civil proceedings have been also undertaken in the legal theory of these states, which have been also presented in the necessary scope for the needs of this paper, the more so that there have occurred numerous divergences how this notion is to be understood. In this area, there is a particular need to resolve the issue whether litigation capacity shall be understood as a category of a type of feature or qualification or else as a subjective right.