In 2003, the average duration of penal proceedings before a first-instance court was six months. Average duration of a civil case was more than eight months. Warsaw is where the situation is worst. There, a civil procedure can be spread over more than five years.  

The right to a fair trial is one of the foundations of democracy. If a state fails to guarantee this right to its citizens, other human rights and freedoms will also suffer from insufficient protection. The right to have a case considered by a court within a reasonable time is a key element to the right to a fair trial. The Polish state incessantly violates this right. The problem has been add ressed by, among others, the UN Human Rights Committee and also in a report by the US Department of State. The latter describes the Polish judicial system as “cumbersome, poorly administered, inadequately staffed, and underfunded”.

While it is true that the reasons for the shortcomings of Polish courts may be found in incessant financial problems, the petrified structure of the judicial system, inherited from the communist regime, is also to blame. Hence, the present judicial system is unprepared and unsuited to the conditions of democracy, where a court is the basic mechanism used by citizens to seek their rights. The judicial authority in Poland should not only be independent. As it has turned out, a certain degree of efficiency seems to be of equal importance.

In 2003 only, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has found that in 39 cases Poland violated Article 6 para. 1 of the European Convention in which limits are set to the length of proceedings. One of the most important judgments of the Court relating to this problem was pronounced in 2000, in the Kud³a vs. Poland case (Judgment No. 30210/96). In this case, the Court not only declared infringement of Article 6.1 of the European Convention, but also of Article 13, guaranteeing the right to an effective appeal remedy. This way, the Court indicated not only a necessity to reform the judicial system in Poland, but also to introduce a national remedy permitting an entity to seek justice in case of infringement of such entity´s right to trial within reasonable time. The creation of such a mechanism has been planned in the draft Bill on complaint related to infringement of a party´s right to trial within reasonable time, developed by the Ministry of Justice. However, the draft has not yet reached the Sejm (the lower House of the Polish Parliament).
 
Reforms aimed at making the judicial system more effective were included in the programs of subsequent governments after 1989, but neither has been successful in bringing it into effect. The plans include simplification of the court procedure, structural changes in common courts, increases in the number of judges, the assigningment of more funds from the budget, and computerization of the judicial system. One of the main obstacles on the road to effective performance of such aims used to be the problems with the Polish state budget. Even though these problems have been overcome, effects of the effort shall not be visible at once; they shall be spread over many years. It seems that in the nearest future patience will still be the resource most commonly asked from Poles appearing before their own courts.