Agreements to modify the rules of evidence in the civil proceedings

Bibliogr. s. 49-52

The article deals with agreements executed between parties of the pending or future civil proceedings that modify the statutory rules of evidence. Such agreements had been considered by Polish jurisprudence as inadmissible. In 2019, however, the Code of Civil Procedure has been thoroughly amended and now contains new Article 4589. This provision introduced the concept and scope of an agreement to modify rules of evidence. Against this background, the author advocates for two main theses. Firstly, in author's opinion agreements to modify rules of evidence are fully coherent with the adversarial objective of civil proceedings and carry out the principle of party-disposition. Secondly, the author argues that the agreements to modify evidence had been admissible even before introduction of new provisions into the Polish Code of Civil Procedure. Both views are supported by in-depth comparative analysis (covering continental civil-law countries, in particular Germany and France) and axiological considerations. These views cast a new light on the recently adopted amendment, which the article thoroughly analyzes against those assumptions.