Recently, I encountered a case in which an authority refused to grant a foreigner a temporary residence permit due to the failure to submit a certificate confirming the legal title to a place of residence. The situation was as follows: the authority sent a letter to the foreigner requesting that she provide such a document. However, the letter never reached her, and the postal service returned it with a note stating that the shipment had not been collected within the deadline despite two delivery notices.
Due to the failure of the unaware foreigner to submit the requested document, the authority concluded that she did not have a legal title to any place of residence in Poland and therefore issued a negative decision.
Leaving aside the fact that the foreigner had already submitted such a document earlier and it had been in the case file all along, it should be noted that the authority made no effort to clarify this issue thoroughly. The authority seems to have forgotten that, under the Code of Administrative Procedure, it is obliged to take all necessary steps to fully clarify the factual circumstances of the case.
The authority must make this effort so that, at the time of issuing the decision, it has a complete understanding of the facts, which is a necessary condition for issuing a correct decision.
Therefore, can limiting its activity solely to sending a single letter requesting a document be considered proper fulfillment of the obligation to thoroughly clarify the case? In my opinion, it cannot. Especially since such passivity in gathering evidence leads to unreliable findings that do not reflect the actual state of affairs.
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