In the judgment of February 27, 2023, reference number I CSK 3595/22, the Supreme Court referred to the issue of the concept of „important reasons” in the context of Art. 43 § 2 of the Family and Guardianship Code. This provision provides that for important reasons, each of the spouses may demand that the determination of the shares in the joint property take place taking into account the degree to which each of the spouses contributed to the creation of the property, which is an exception to the principle of equal shares of the spouses in the joint property.
The judgment was issued on the basis of the participant’s cassation appeal against the decision of the District Court, which did not accede to the participant’s appeal demanding that his share in the joint property be set at 70% and his wife’s share at 30%. As an important legal issue that needs to be resolved, he indicated the need to define the premise of „important reasons” by indicating whether they are exclusively of a non-financial nature, or whether they may be related to the difference in education and professional activity, and the creation of personal property thanks to the personal brand of one of the spouses.
The Supreme Court found the questions formulated in this way to be too detailed to be of value for the development of the law. The court noted that Art. 43 § 2 of the Family and Guardianship Code uses general clauses and unspecified phrases for a specific purpose – these techniques used in legislation allow the courts to assess each case more flexibly, resulting from the overall case, which, however, cannot be arbitrary. For this reason, it is not possible to define this general clause. However, there may be indications of important reasons. For example, it is a statement of violation of the principles of social coexistence, which resulted from the spouse benefiting from a part of the joint property to which he did not contribute. It is also reprehensible conduct of the spouse against whom the demand is directed, which manifests itself in flagrant or persistent failure to contribute to the creation of joint property according to strength and earning potential.
Thus, in addition to important reasons, the premise for making a request specified in Art. 43 § 2 of the Family and Guardianship Code is the real contribution of spouses to personal property to varying degrees. The very concept of contributing is not purely financial in nature – also contributing to the upbringing of children and work devoted to the household should be taken into account when assessing this matter. An important issue is also the way of spending joint property, e.g. wasting joint property. Different degrees of contribution to the creation of this asset are relevant if the difference is significant and clear.
Finally, the Supreme Court emphasized that the complainant did not meet the requirements of the cassation appeal, because he failed to prove that the Regional Court’s decision was made in gross violation of the law, and therefore the complaint did not deserve to be examined. Moreover, it recalled that it was not a court of third instance.