Ius civile vigilantibus scriptum est? Part 3—the consequences of mistakes when requesting written reasons
Professional lawyers consider an application for written reasons for a ruling one of the simplest pleadings. Unlike most documents filed during proceedings, this application is always effective if it meets formal requirements. In practice, the applicant need only express a wish to receive a specified ruling with reasons and pay the required court fee.
This article would not exist, however, if filing this apparently simple document did not raise doubts or opportunities for mistakes.
How to request reasons after the Code of Civil Procedure amendment
An application for written reasons is among the documents that, under the amended Code of Civil Procedure, will be covered from March 2026 by a new filing procedure through the information portal[1].
Until March 2027, this procedure will be optional, with the existing filing method remaining available in parallel. After the one-year implementation period, however, the portal will be the only correct means of filing. The same rules will apply to documents remedying formal defects in applications for reasons.
This is worth remembering to avoid mistakes, especially because a document filed through the wrong channel will have no procedural effect.
When should—and should not—an application for reasons be filed?
At first sight, the answer seems simple: apply for preparation and service of reasons when they have not yet been served and the party wishes to read them. That is only partly correct.
No application should be filed where the court has served the ruling with reasons of its own motion[2]. The appeal period then runs from service of the ruling and is not “suspended” by another request for reasons.
An application is necessary where reasons have not been served of the court’s own motion and the party intends to challenge the ruling. It does not matter whether the party genuinely wants to read the reasons or can reconstruct the court’s reasoning from the circumstances. Filing the application is a formal prerequisite for an effective appeal. The same applies where the court serves only the ruling accompanied by its essential grounds. Although these may help the party decide whether an appeal is justified, the party must still request full reasons before appealing.
This concerns filing the application alone. Case law accepts that the party need not wait for the reasons to be served before lodging a challenge. Although the appeal period runs from service of the ruling with reasons, an interlocutory appeal filed between requesting reasons for an order and their service is not rejected[3].
A wrong decision about requesting reasons can permanently close the appeal route.
If the court serves only the operative part, possibly with essential grounds, and counsel does not request reasons, the appeal period never starts. If the court serves the ruling with reasons of its own motion, the period starts on service. Filing an unnecessary application instead of an appeal may then result in a culpably missed deadline.
What is the deadline for requesting written reasons?
Under the Code, an application must be filed within seven days of pronouncement, or service where the ruling was subject to service of the court’s own motion. But does this always define the permissible filing window?
Sometimes a party or lawyer knows before pronouncement that they will want to read the reasons regardless of the result. They may also learn the ruling’s content before formal service by examining the file or seeing it on the information portal.
Must an application filed before pronouncement or service always be premature and ineffective?
The Supreme Court has addressed this repeatedly, considering not only the day but even the hour and minute of filing.
Case law is clear that filing before the day of pronouncement is ineffective.
Applications filed on the day of pronouncement but before the actual announcement are controversial[4]. Given Supreme Court decisions indicating that applications filed before the hour of pronouncement may be ineffective, filing even one minute early risks rejection.
The justification is that the application would concern a ruling that did not yet exist when filed. There is no certainty that it will be pronounced as scheduled: the court may change the date for various reasons. Until the ruling formally exists, an application concerning it has no subject matter.
Do the same rules apply where the ruling undoubtedly exists despite not having been formally served? A party or lawyer may read its operative part while inspecting the file. A signed ruling in the file plainly exists.
Only formalism appears to stand in the way of an effective request for reasons. Yet it would have to be applied inconsistently. As mentioned, an appeal can be filed before the formal appeal period opens, between requesting reasons and their service. In the author’s view, there is no reason to treat differently an application for reasons filed before service of a ruling that already exists at the time.
[1] See the Act of 5 August 2025 amending the Code of Civil Procedure, the Civil Code and certain other Acts (Journal of Laws, item 1172).
[2] See Articles 357 § 22 and § 24, and 394 § 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
[3] Supreme Court resolution of 26 October 2021, III CZP 55/20, OSNC 2022, no. 3, item 23.
[4] For example, the Supreme Court order of 10 March 2015, II UZ 80/14, held that filing on the day of publication sufficed even before pronouncement. The opposite view appears, among others, in orders of 27 July 2016, V CZ 31/16, and 13 June 2013, V CZ 21/13.
