By the Act of July 4, 2019 amending the Act – Code of Civil Procedure and certain other acts, the legislator decided to modify the model of the institution of a complaint in civil proceedings. As a consequence, the provision of Art. 3941a and the amended provision of art. 3942, which jointly regulate: a complaint to another composition of the court of first instance and a complaint to another composition of the court of second instance. Both presented regulations were then modified by the Act of March 9, 2023 amending the Act– Code of Civil Procedure and certain other acts. As the advantages of introducing these legal provisions, as emphasized in the literature and court decisions, were indicated the optimization of the economics of the complaint procedure (shortening the duration of this procedure), elimination of organizational difficulties related to the need to transfer files to courts of second instance, faster and more efficient recognition of appeals. In this way, the legislator also intended to clearly demarcate the competences of the court of first and second instance, leaving the latter to substantive control of the outcome of the proceedings and relieving it from settling minor issues. This article is an attempt to answer whether the assumptions of the legislator, which deserve approval, have been implemented. In the author’s opinion, the introduced legislative solutions are not sufficient and ultimately do not lead to the acceleration of the duration of proceedings, or they accelerate them at the expense of the correct way of examining the case. The above is a consequence of the imbalance between determining whether a vertical or a horizontal complaint remains the rule. Therefore, such a situation requires further intervention by the legislator. Conducting the analysis of institutions required the use of various research methods: dogmatic-linguistic, comparative, jurisprudence analysis, and, additionally, historical.
