Pursuant to Article 86 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC) parties may represent themselves or be represented by an attorney in cases under labour, employment and social insurance law. There are, however, a number of separate specific regulations in those cases. Most significantly, Article 465 of the CPC expands the group of people who may be attorneys in this special proceedings. As a rule, the ability to appoint a representative is excluded when the State Treasury or any other legal entity is represented by the General Counsel to the Republic of Poland. In such a case, the representation activities are performed by the counsels and court referendaries at the General Counsel to the Republic of Poland, as well as its President and vicepresidents. They are authorised to act under the statute and they need to present their service identity card to represent their principal.

The capacity to be a party to court proceedings in the case of the organisational units of the National Revenue Administration has not been regulated in a uniform manner. They do not have legal capacity in strictly civil matters and, by extension, they do not have capacity to be a party to court proceedings. Therefore, they do not act on their own in civil proceedings; they only act as representatives of the State Treasury. Conversely, the organisational units of the National Revenue Administration have special capacity to be a party to court proceedings pursuant to Article 460 para. 1 of the Civil Procedure Code in separate proceedings on matters concerning labour and social security law. The purpose of this paper is to decide to what an extent the organisational units of the National Revenue Administration take advantage of their special capacity to be a party to court proceedings. Depending on the outcome, it will be possible to answer, among other things, who should be the defendant in cases brought by the officers of the Customs and Tax Task Forces, particularly in court proceedings for the award of financial equivalents for the lack of tied accommodation.