In the judgment of June 10, 2022, reference number III SA / Kr 140/22, the Provincial Administrative Court in Kraków ruled that „The case for the transfer by the Polish receiving authority to the host authority of another state of the request of the entitled person, in which he demands the obligated provision of maintenance , based on Article. 3 and 4 of the Convention on the Recovery of Maintenance Claims Abroad drawn up in New York on June 20, 1956 (Journal of Laws of 1961 No. 17, item 87) is settled in administrative proceedings to which the provisions of the Code do not apply administrative procedure „, and” The transmitting authority does not deal with the matter of recognition and performance of the maintenance obligation between the entitled and the obligated person, but only facilitates the rightholder to settle such a case in another country by transferring it under the Convention to the receiving body, which is connected with the obligation to take specific actions by the receiving authority. This means that the subject matter of the case handled by the transmitting authority is to undertake strictly defined technical and organizational measures relating only to the family law case. ” Consequently, in accordance with the operative part of the judgment, as a result of an application submitted by an authorized person between the entitled person and the transmitting authority, an administrative-legal relationship arises, the content of which is the right to demand that the application be transferred to the receiving authority in another country.
This judgment was issued on the basis of a complaint brought by the daughter of a man who was liable for maintenance imposed by the judgments of March 2, 1993, March 27, 1998, October 26, 2000 and August 29, 2008. They successively set the amount of maintenance at: 1,000,000 old zlotys a month, 300 zlotys a month, 500 zlotys a month and again 500 zlotys a month. The applicant’s father currently lives in Germany, therefore the application for enforcement lodged with the Regional Court was forwarded by that authority to the German side in February 1994.
The father stopped paying alimony in 2017, and did not settle the arrears, as the daughter informed the German side many times. The German authority has repeatedly communicated that the failure of enforcement is justified by the fact that the debtor receives a pension which does not exceed the limit to which German law provides for exemption from enforcement, and consequently the chances of successful enforcement are slim.
In July 2021, the German party submitted the application, informing about the completion of the enforcement proceedings, and the District Court responded by re-sending the application together with the returned documents and the applicant’s letter. In August of the same year, the German authority again notified that enforcement was not possible due to the lack of property to be seized, and in October it informed that the proceedings had been terminated without the possibility of continuing them due to the debtor’s insufficient income combined with a lack of real estate and assets.
As a result, the President of the Regional Court issued an order to close the case for the enforcement of maintenance at the request of the applicant, who lodged a complaint against it with the Provincial Administrative Court. In her complaint, she indicated that her father was regularly informed about settlements and arrears. The District Court appealed for its dismissal, claiming that it had fulfilled its obligations as a transmitting authority.
In accordance with the operative part of the judgment, the Regional Court was not obliged to ensure the successful conclusion of the case, but to submit the letters to the German authority, and the Code of Administrative Procedure was not applicable in the present case.