President sends justice of the peace legislation to parliament

President Andrzej Duda on Thursday signed two legislative initiatives regarding justice of the peace courts and said he would submit them to the Sejm (lower house) later in the day.

The first initiative is a draft law on justice of the peace courts and the second is a draft law on provisions for the Act on the Justice of the Peace Courts.

Introducing justice of peace courts was the initiative of Pawel Kukiz, MP and leader of Kukiz'15, a small conservative party. In April 2021, Duda created a team of a number of presidential, government and judiciary officials whose goal was to prepare the legislation.

During Thursday’s ceremony Duda said that "At first, it was just the idea that the participation of a factor close to Polish society and dealing with simple matters (...) would bring the judiciary closer to the citizen."

In his opinion, the introduction of the institution of justices of the peace courts also offers hope for increasing respect for the justice system in Polish society and the belief in its proper functioning and fairness.

Justice of peace courts are expected to deal with basic and straight-forward cases that could be easily resolved. This would take some of the burden off regular courts, where trials often last years due to an overload of cases.