History

The Court of Arbitration for Sport of the Polish Olympic Committee started its activity on November 17, 1994. Its structure and rules of operation were shaped in the manner similar to those of the Court of Arbitration for Sport with its seat in Lausanne.

Pursuant to Article 40 of the Act of January 18, 1996 on physical culture (Journal of Laws of 1996 No. 25, item 113), the Court gained statutory grounds. Since the very beginning the Court operated as a permanent court of arbitration. At the beginning, the Court examined appeals against disciplinary or regulatory decisions of the relevant bodies of Polish sports associations solely under rules specified in the statutes of Polish sports associations.

In 2001 (Journal of Laws No. 102, item 1115), the Court gained the competence to examine appeals against the regulatory or disciplinary decisions of Polish sports associations regardless of whether the association’s internal provisions provided for the possibility of appeal to the Court.

The amendment of April 15, 2005 (Journal of Laws No. 85, item 726) stated that the Court shall comprise of 24 arbitrators appointed at that time in equal number by the minister competent for the physical culture affairs and sports, the Management Board of the Polish Olympic Committee and the President of the Polish Confederation for Sports. The referred amendment also provided for the parties the right to lodge a cassation against a disciplinary or regulatory ruling of the Court in the event of gross abuse of the provisions of law or apparent unfairness of the ruling.

In 2005, the provisions for the Court’s operations were transferred, with little changes, to the act on competitive sports (Journal of Laws of 2005 No. 155, item 1298).

On June 25, 2010, the act on sports was passed (Journal of Laws of 2010 No. 127, item 857) that fully repealed the act on competitive sports. In its initial version, however, the act on sports did not provide for any regulation concerning the Court, which meant that it lost its competence to settle disputes resulting from appealing against the regulatory and disciplinary decisions of Polish sports associations, except for the situations, where the Court’s competence was specified in the internal provisions of a sports association or the mutual agreement of the parties to submit the case to the Court.

The adopted solution was widely criticised by the doctrine and, as expected, proved to be impractical. That is why in the amendment of July 23, 2015 (Journal of Laws of 2015, item 1321) a new Chapter 9a was introduced, which regulated the legal status of the Court and the fundamental principles of its operations.
Under the amendment, the Court regained its statutory grounds for operation, as well as the competence to settle any disputes resulting from appealing against the final disciplinary decisions of Polish sports associations.