The paper contains a short account of the unification of Polish civil law, a task that was accomplished in 1964 with the adoption of the civil code and the family and guardianship code. Those codifications, rooted in the communist system, were substantially modified in 1989. However, despite over 50 amendments, certain elements of the communist doctrine have remained in both codes till today. Therefore further modifications are necessary and will have to be incorporated in a new code of civil law, together with the new system of values set out in the Constitution of 1997 as well as the Community laws that Poland is also required to account for in its legal system. Work on the drafting of a new legislative bill has already commenced at the Civil Law Codification Committee at the Ministry of Justice.