Our website has already had three articles on proposed changes to the legislation on mobbing (bullying) in the workplace (last one at the end of December 2025). Today, we review the final version of the draft bill, which the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy has submitted to the Sejm. It is this version that will see further legislative work.

The main objectives of the ministry’s draft amendment to the Labour Code are: simplifying the definition of workplace mobbing, strengthening protection against undesirable conduct in the workplace and increasing the minimum compensation for victims of harassment. On 17 February 2026, the Council of Ministers approved the draft. Four days later, it was submitted to the Sejm on 24 February 2026, and on 26 February 2026 it was referred for its first reading at a session of the Sejm.

The draft differs from its predecessors in several key aspects concerning the provisions on workplace mobbing. We discuss each significant change below.

Minimum compensation: six times instead of twelve

The draft sets the lower threshold for moral redress for mobbing (bullying) at six times the minimum wage. In 2026, this is PLN 4,806 gross, meaning that an employee who has been a victim of mobbing may claim at least PLN 28,836. This is merely a lower threshold and not an upper limit on claims: employees will be able to seek higher moral redress for pain and suffering, as well as compensation.

The earlier draft had a significantly higher threshold of twelve times the minimum wage. The difference is therefore substantial: the statutory minimum has been halved compared to the previous proposal. The final draft’s explanatory memorandum does not provide any explicit reasoning for this adjustment – the reasoning is almost identical as in the earlier bill. It points to a need to adequately redress harm, citing the Supreme Court’s judgment of 8 August 2017 (I PK 206/16), while referring to the Regulatory Impact Assessment for a detailed economic analysis. There, however, a systemic argument emerges: the multiple of six is close to the maximum three months’ salary which constitutes the upper limit of a period of notice, which is intended to demonstrate that the proposed regulation is internally consistent.

The most likely explanation for the lowered threshold is a compromise reached during consultations and a settlement conference, representing a balance between employees’ interests and employers’ concerns about excessive financial exposure. Employers have gained a lower mandatory threshold for moral redress, but – as will be explained below – have lost the ability to exempt themselves from liability.

Employer’s liability for workplace mobbing: is any exemption possible?

One of the most significant changes, compared to the bill’s earlier versions, is the elimination of the possibility of exempting an employer from liability for workplace mobbing. The previous draft bill explicitly stated that an employer could be exempted from liability if they demonstrated that they had properly fulfilled their duty of prevention, and that the mobbing behaviour had originated from a person who was not managing the employee or a superior of that person. The draft put before the Sejm does not include a corresponding provision. The only protection employers have is the remaining right to seek reimbursement of incurred costs from the direct perpetrator of the mobbing, after first paying moral redress or compensation to the employee.

This raises an important question as to the practical significance of this change for the existing case law of the Supreme Court. For years, the Supreme Court has consistently allowed employers to be exempted from liability based on the general provisions on contractual liability. In its judgment of 3 August 2011 (I PK 35/11), the Supreme Court held that if an employer demonstrates that it took real and objectively effective preventive measures, it may be freed from liability for mobbing. This is because the obligation is of due diligence, not of result. Paradoxically, this possibility existed precisely because there was no provision that explicitly provided for it, which opened the way for applying the general provisions on liability for improper performance of an obligation. This line of reasoning was consistently upheld in subsequent case law, including in the judgment of 11 June 2024 (II PSKP 38/23).

The amendment in its current form undermines this foundation on several levels:

• Firstly, the draft bill’s silence on the issue of employers’ exemption from liability – in view of the fact that the bills’ previous version explicitly provided for this possibility – should be read as a deliberate decision of legislators to select a model of strict liability of employers in relation to employees,
• Secondly, the new provisions regulate in detail employers’ duty of prevention: detecting mobbing, responding appropriately, taking remedial action, and supporting those affected by harassment – bringing it closer to a duty of result rather than merely a duty of care; the more specific the statutory prevention requirements, the harder it is to argue that their fulfilment will exempt the employer from liability,
• Thirdly, the report on consultations documents that, even during the drafting of the previous version of the bill, the possibility of exempting employers from liability was viewed negatively as a mechanism that would undermine employee protection – and its final deletion occurred following the settlement conference, indicating a legislative compromise reached under the influence of those views.

The arguments against maintaining the current line of case law clearly outweigh those in favour of retaining it; however, this matter will be ultimately decided by the courts – unless legislators decide to clarify the provisions during further work on the legislation.

Regulations instead of a public notice: new formal requirements for employers

A significant change is the form that the internal act is required to have. The previous draft bill allowed a public notice to be issued. The final version of the bill has replaced this with a requirement to issue separate regulations.

The draft bill requires employers with at least nine employees to have regulations in place that include rules, procedures and frequencies of actions in the following areas: preventing violations of employee dignity and personal rights, preventing violations of the equal treatment rule, preventing discrimination and preventing workplace mobbing – provided that these matters have not already been regulated in a collective agreement or in the workplace regulations. As the explanatory memorandum to the draft emphasises, in constituting a source of labour law, the regulations serve as a guarantee to employers that the preventive measures, which they adopt, may be enforced as employee obligations, as well as to employees by safeguarding their rights to benefit from these regulations.

As the bill’s explanatory memorandum stipulates, employers with fewer than nine employees will not be required to issue formal regulations, but this will not exempt them from the preventive obligation itself. The rules and procedures they adopt must be communicated to their employees so that they gain appropriate knowledge and information.

The regulations’ provisions will be subject to agreement with workplace trade unions or, in their absence, with employees’ representatives. A period of 30 days will be allowed for consultations, starting from when the employer presents the draft regulations. If no agreement is reached by this deadline, the employer will decide the regulations independently, taking into account what was agreed during the consultations. It should be recognised that, ultimately, the described procedure is more akin to consultations than to fully fledged agreement. On the other hand, it is a significant advantage that employers will not be indefinitely prevented from introducing appropriate regulations.

Changes to the jurisdiction of courts

The draft bill will amend the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code on the subject-matter jurisdiction of courts in employment matters. Although constituting partly a clarification compared to the earlier draft, the change is very significant from the perspective of currently binding law.

Until now, Article 461 § 1¹ of the Civil Procedure Code conferred exclusive jurisdiction to district courts only in cases involving determining the existence of a relationship of employment, declaring the invalidity of a notice of termination, and for reinstatement to work, compensation for unjustified termination, or termination of employment, as well as in cases concerning disciplinary measures and employment certificates. Cases involving workplace mobbing, infringement of personal rights or breach of equal treatment, were not covered by this provision, which meant that the court’s jurisdiction was determined by the value of the subject matter of the dispute, and non-pecuniary claims (such as a claim for an apology) were referred to a regional court.

In practice, this led to a situation in which related claims of the same employee could be heard by different courts. For example, a claim for moral redress for workplace mobbing could be held in a district court and a non-pecuniary claim for the protection of personal rights in a regional court.

The draft bill will eliminate this inconvenience. All cases concerning the protection of personal rights, workplace mobbing and breaches of equal treatment in employment will be transferred to the jurisdiction of district courts, regardless of the value of the subject matter of the dispute and irrespective of whether the case is of pecuniary or non-pecuniary nature. The clause covering non-pecuniary claims is the key difference between the current draft bill and its predecessor: whilst the earlier version did expand the list of cases falling within the jurisdiction of district courts to include workplace mobbing and violations of personal rights, it did not contain an explicit provision regarding non-pecuniary cases. The memorandum explaining the draft bill emphasises that this solution is not unprecedented: district courts are already hearing non-pecuniary employment cases concerning disciplinary penalties and employment certificates.

At the same time, the draft bill supplements the list of cases that may be heard by a judge with a lay panel (one judge and two lay assistants) to include cases regarding the infringement of personal rights and related claims.

What next?

The draft has been submitted to the Sejm, but it still has a long way to go through the legislative process. During the parliamentary stage, which will include readings, committee work and possible amendments, the legislation may still undergo many changes. The history of this draft bill clearly shows that subsequent stages of the process have often led to significant amendments, and sometimes, as with the issue of exempting employers from liability, to a complete reversal of the previously accepted direction. We will monitor its progress and keep you informed of any significant changes.

One thing remains certain: employers will have six months from the date the act comes into force to amend their workplace regulations or issue separate anti-mobbing regulations. While the act itself will come into force 21 days after its publication. This is sufficient time to thoroughly review existing internal documents and prepare new regulations – and it is worth planning this time now.

Summary of key changes to workplace mobbing legislation

The summary below covers the key provisions discussed in this article of the final draft that has been submitted to the Sejm by the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy. Issues that will change compared to current legislation or earlier versions of the bill are highlighted in bold.

Tomasz Pleśniak

Przemysław Zając