Mater semper certa est? : some remarks on the effects of the foreign gestational surrogacy from the perspective of the public policy exception

The issue of gestational surrogacy is a serious challenge to Polish and foreign law. The present paper deals with the difficult questions of the assumptions, and the scope of application, of the public policy exception in cases before the Polish courts and authorities - especially in the procedure of the transcription of foreign birth certificates and certifying the Polish nationality acquired by a child born of a surrogate mother and genetically related to his or her sociological parents. Numerous inconsistencies of reasoning in Polish case law and the doctrine of international family law rise doubts about the correctness of the application of the 'ordre public' in most cases of recent years.