INDEPENDENCE OF A JUDICIAL REFERENDARY IN THE LIGHT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE OF THE RIGHT TO A COURT

The institution of a court referendary has been gaining an increasingly important position in civil proceedings in Poland for some time now. Virtually every major amendment to the Code of Civil Procedure expands the scope of competences of court referendaries to include new activities previously reserved for judges.This phenomenon should be assessed unequivocally positively. However, it raises questions about the degree to which the legislator guarantees the independence of court referendaries when they undertake adjudicative activities. The Constitution of the Republic of Poland guarantees the citizen the right to have his case decided by an independent and impartial court. The same Constitution also proclaims the principle of judicial independence, which the legislator implements by equipping the judge with a set of attributes referred to as the guarantee of judicial independence. This study is an attempt to analyse what the independence of a court registrar is and to what extent it is effectively guaranteed in Polish law.