Acta Iuris Stetinensis

This article deals with a question of whether a request for interpretation of a judgment and an appeal in cassation are, de lege lata, effective legal means of resolving ambiguities in the written grounds of judgments issued by the Polish district administrative courts. I analysed these institutions applying a formal dogmatic method and a method of literary criticism. I evaluated the usefulness of these measures for the realization of the above-mentioned goal through the logical method: 1) I assessed the effectiveness of the request for interpretation of a judgment by comparing the prerequisites of its validity with selected situations in which a party might not understand the judgment received and 2) I analyzed the effectiveness of appeal in cassation from the viewpoint of its utility in eliminating judgments with unclear grounds. The study showed that these measures are not, de lege lata, effective means of removing a party’s doubts about the content of the grounds. The purpose of a request for interpretation of a judgment is not to remove a party’s subjective doubts about the content of the judgment, but only a certain category of doubts referred to in case law as “real”. However, neither case law nor doctrine clarifies what it means. In my opinion, this measure was conceived to meet the needs of those who are proficient in legal language, and not the general public. On the other hand, the appeal in cassation (allegation of violation by the District Administrative Court of Article 141 § 4 of the Act on proceedings before administrative courts) is not relevant due to the restriction arising from Article 174(2) of the same Act, i.e. the need to establish that the alleged violation makes it impossible to conduct a judicial review. In fact, this provision reduces the constitutional functions of grounds to formal and control functions. In addition, according to current case law, the fact that a party does not understand the ruling does not yet justify the need to revoke it.