Bank i Kredyt

Ryszard Tollik
A fallacity of removing regulations concerning contracts of bank accounts (Articles 725 - 733) from the Polish Civil Code and inserting them into the Banking Law Act

During the work on amendments to the Banking Law Act, there has been a proposal to remove regulations concerning contracts of bank accounts (Book Three, Title XX, Articles 725 - 733) from the Polish Civil Code and transfer them to Chapter Three of the Banking Law Act, apparently to facilitate the accurate interpretation of the regulations on bank accounts and promote better understanding of these regulations among clients and banks. This issue is of great importance for the legal system - both for banking legislation and for the civil law. The paper denounces this idea as erroneous and detrimental if implemented.

The issue of transferring regulations on contracts of bank accounts from the Civil Code to the Banking Law Act has never been raised in any legal study on civil and banking law. Off-hand and haphazard changes in this respect are unnecessary.
Poland introduced the contracting of bank accounts into the Polish Civil Code in 1964 as a second country in the world after Italy (1942). There is no need to withdraw from this legislative achievement.
A number of works praise these regulations, their flexibility and applicability, despite changes that have taken place in bank account systems.
The context of the civil code facilitates, rather than hampers their accurate interpretation in accordance with the civil law.
Difficulties in interpretation of the regulations on bank accounts so far have not referred to the regulations of the Civil Code, but to those included in the Banking Law Act.
The division of the regulations on bank accounts between the Civil Code and the Banking Law Act creates no difficulty in the understanding and the interpretation of these regulations.
The removal of the regulations concerning bank accounts from the Civil Code is inconsistent with a general tendency to strengthen the Code as a basic source of civil law. Since 1989, the Code has been constantly supplemented and its regulations modified in a very considered manner. Not so much as one type of contract has been removed from the Code.

If the bank account regulations remain part of the Civil Code, their future modification will remain possible. Such modifications should concern regulations whose interpretations have already been well established.