Violation of personal rights in Poland — protection, apology and compensation. Warsaw law firm (2026)

Personal rights are honour, good name, image, privacy, name and health. They are protected by Articles 23 and 24 of the Polish Civil Code, and whoever violates them must apologise, stop, and often pay compensation for the harm. The cases that reach us most often are abusive comments and reviews online, photos published without consent, slander by a former partner, employer or competitor, and false information in the media. Below we explain what you can demand, who proves what, how much a lawsuit costs and how much time you have. We handle personal rights cases as part of civil law and compensation claims in Warsaw.

What personal rights are and what counts as a violation

Article 23 of the Civil Code lists personal rights only by way of example: health, freedom, honour, freedom of conscience, name or pseudonym, image, secrecy of correspondence, inviolability of the home, and scientific, artistic, inventive and rationalising creativity. The catalogue is open: courts have added privacy, family bonds, the memory of a deceased person and the right to peaceful use of a home. In practice, the most common violations are:

• slander: attributing conduct or traits that degrade a person in public opinion or expose them to losing the trust needed for their work or business (honour, good name);
• abusive comments, reviews and posts on social media, forums and rating sites, including anonymous ones;
• publishing a photo, recording or personal data without consent, including in advertising and on company profiles (image, privacy);
• disclosing information about health, family life, finances or someone's past (privacy, secrecy of correspondence);
• mobbing, public humiliation at work, false statements about the reasons for dismissal (employee dignity);
• harassment by calls and messages, showing up at someone's home, threats (freedom, inviolability of the home, peace of mind).

Personal rights belong to every human being regardless of citizenship or residence status: a foreigner living in Poland enjoys the same protection as a Polish citizen. Legal persons are protected too (a company's good name, its name, secrecy of correspondence), though without compensation for non-material harm. Where the motive is national or ethnic origin, Article 257 of the Criminal Code applies as well.

Who proves what: the presumption of unlawfulness

Article 24 § 1 of the Civil Code reverses the usual burden of proof. You only show that a violation occurred (or is genuinely imminent) and that it concerns your personal right. Unlawfulness is presumed: it is the other side that must prove it acted within the law, namely that the information was true and published in a justified interest, that this was permitted criticism, that you consented, or that it exercised its own right.

This allocation of proof decides most cases. The author of a post saying this doctor is a fraud must show that fraud took place, not you that it did not. The limit of protection is objective: the court asks how an average, reasonable reader perceives the statement, not how much it hurt you personally. The assessment differs for public figures and companies, who must tolerate broader criticism, and for private individuals.

What you can demand: four claims

The Civil Code gives the injured person a set of claims that can be combined in one lawsuit:

• cessation: a ban on further dissemination, publication or harassment, also for the future when a violation is only imminent;
• removal of the effects of the violation: usually a statement of a specified content and form, that is an apology in the same medium, by letter, on a portal's home page or in a newspaper, plus deletion of the post or photo; the court sets the wording and place of the apology, so the lawsuit must formulate them precisely;
• compensation for harm or payment of an appropriate sum to a designated social cause under Article 448 of the Civil Code; since 15 September 2023 the provision says either, so as a rule you choose one of these forms, and the court awards it only where the violation was culpable;
• damages where the violation caused financial loss, for example lost clients after a false review or medical costs after harassment (Article 24 § 2 of the Civil Code).

The amount of compensation does not come from any table. The court weighs the type of right, the reach of the violation (a private message or a post with thousands of views), its duration, the degree of fault and the consequences: lost job, broken relationships, treatment. In high-reach online cases awards reach tens of thousands of zlotys, in minor ones a few thousand; a dishonest lawyer promises a number, an honest one explains what it depends on.

Online violations: comments, Google reviews, social media

Most cases today concern the internet. The first step is securing evidence: screenshots with date and URL, ideally certified by a notary or captured by a timestamping tool, because a post can vanish an hour after a demand letter. The second is the demand: to the author, if known, and to the platform. Every hosting provider must run a mechanism for reporting illegal content (Article 16 of the Digital Services Act, DSA) and handle the report without undue delay; from Google, Facebook or a review portal we demand removal of the content and a stop to its further distribution.

When the author is anonymous, the data needed for a lawsuit (e-mail address, IP, account details) can be obtained from the service provider: on a demand invoking a legitimate interest in pursuing claims, and after a refusal through the court, which during the case may order the administrator to hand them over. A separate problem is photos and texts used without consent, where copyright rules work alongside personal rights, as we describe in our article on copyright in practice.

Reviews of a business or doctor on Google Maps, ZnanyLekarz or GoWork are a separate category: an opinion is allowed, a false fact is not. The sentence they made me wait an hour is criticism; the sentence they falsified my records is an allegation the author must prove. We separate fact from opinion before sending any demand, because a badly worded request to delete lawful criticism weakens the whole later case.

Defamation under Article 212 of the Criminal Code: criminal or civil route

Slander is also a crime: Article 212 of the Criminal Code provides for a fine or restriction of liberty, and for defamation online or in the media up to one year of imprisonment. It is prosecuted by private indictment: you file the indictment yourself with the district court, and since 1 July 2025 the lump-sum equivalent of costs is PLN 1000 (previously PLN 300). The criminal route is open only for one year from learning who the perpetrator is, and no longer than three years from the act.

The civil and criminal routes do not exclude each other: they can run in parallel, and a conviction binds the civil court as to the fact that the crime was committed. In practice the civil case brings an apology and money, the criminal case a conviction and a strong negotiating argument; harassment, threats and public insult on grounds of origin are offences prosecuted ex officio. Which route to choose we assess after reading the material; help in criminal cases is described on the page criminal law in Warsaw.

Court fees, which court, and how much time you have

The court fee for a personal rights lawsuit in its non-financial part (cessation, apology) is fixed at PLN 600 under Article 26(1)(3) of the Act on Court Costs in Civil Cases. A separate fee is charged for a claim for compensation or damages: a fixed fee from PLN 30 to PLN 1000 for claims up to PLN 20,000, and 5 % of the value above that. A person who cannot afford the fee may apply for an exemption from court costs.

Cases involving non-financial claims, and financial claims pursued together with them, are heard by the regional court (Article 17(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure); in Warsaw these are the Regional Court in Warsaw and the Regional Court Warsaw-Praga. A lawsuit for payment alone goes to the district or regional court depending on the amount. Before suing we send a pre-litigation demand: a good share of cases end at this stage with an apology and a settlement, and the demand later proves that you tried to settle amicably.

Financial claims become time-barred three years from the day you learned of the harm and of the person liable for it, and no later than ten years from the event (Article 442¹ of the Civil Code). A demand for cessation and an apology formally does not expire, but the longer you wait, the harder it is to show that the violation still has effects, and online evidence disappears fastest.

How we handle personal rights cases

The law firm of legal counsel Bartosz Krajewski handles personal rights cases from securing evidence and the pre-litigation demand through the lawsuit, interim measures and enforcement of the apology. We start with an analysis of the material: whether the statement is fact or opinion, who may be liable (author, editor, administrator), which claims have a real chance and in which court. We quote the fee after that analysis; in personal rights cases there is no honest price list in advance, because the workload depends on the number of violations and parties. How to choose a representative and what to check before signing is described in our article how to choose a good law firm.

If the post, publication or behaviour is ongoing, do not wait for the next one: send us the screenshots and links, and we will tell you what can be done in the first week. The case is handled by legal counsel Bartosz Krajewski.