The Parliament, amended the Polish Language Act. The preparatory work on draft was conducted in cooperation with the Polish Language Council. According to the newly enacted regulations, in case of bilingual versions of a contract with a consumer or an employee, if the consumer or employee is Polish citizen, it is always the Polish version of the contract, which serves as the basis for interpretation. On the other hand, regulations for EU and non-EU foreigners concerning the possibility of drawing up a contract in languages other than Polish have been unified. Especially right to usage of languages other than Polish has been extended to documents other than contracts, whereas the option of usage languages other than Polish has been restricted only to the languages, that the consumer or employee knows.

Previously the act had set up a different status for EU and non-EU foreigners with an effect unfair to both of these groups. The latter could apply for the contract to be drawn up in a foreign language, whereas EU foreigners could not. On the other hand, former legal provisions created a situation, when in case the employee and the employer were from a country outside EU, the contract had to be drawn up in Polish language. Following the Tribunal ruling Polish law-maker acknowledged that there is no reasonable justification for significant differing the rights of Polish and foreign consumers.

Skip to content