The paper refers to the position expressed in the resolution of the Supreme Court of 20 March 2019. The resolution resolves one of the most difficult issues in the field of extraordinary mitigation of the punishment. It is a problem of applying this institution to perpetrators of crimes when a statutory threat includes cumulative imprisonment and a fine. The main reason for the interpretative controversies is the lack of explicit regulation of this issue in the provisions of the current Penal Code. The authors critically evaluate the legal view expressed by the Supreme Court.
The paper demonstrates the penal law consequences of making changes to the provisions of Art. 58 § 1, repealing Art. 58 § 3 and instead adding Art. 37a and Art. 37b to the Criminal Code of 1997 effected through the revision dated 20 February 2015 (Journal of Laws item 396). The author points out that the intention to modify the policy followed by courts in their judicial decisions, most notably to significantly reduce the number of cases with sentences imposing penalty of deprivation of liberty, with a conditional suspension of its enforcement disturbs the logic of the system of sanctions on which the Criminal Code was based along with the entire system of criminal law to which the Criminal Code applies. Furthermore, the difference between the ordinary imposition of penalty and the extraordinarily mitigated imposition of penalty has been blurred, with the latter to be applied only when there are special grounds for such measures, which means only in exceptional situations meriting an extraordinarily mitigated consideration, which is not required when ruling the ordinary imposition of penalty. The paper also disputes the arguments according to which the provision of Art. 37a of the Criminal Code supplements simple sanctions (providing only for imposition of deprivation of liberty) with non-custodial alternative penalties such as fine or limitation of liberty. Criticism is also expressed with regard to the proposed reduction of the lowest penalty of deprivation of liberty from one month to one week. The paper calls for repealing Art. 37a of the Criminal Code and reviving the imposition of penalty stipulated in the repealed Art. 58 § 3 of the Criminal Code, however without the preference included there concerning the additional imposition of a penal measure. It is also pointed out that it is high time to carry out a thorough revision of the penal sanctions for all kinds of crimes stipulated in the Polish legal order with the author naming a number of specific suggestions in this respect.
The articles discusses selected interpretation problems of Art. 264a of the Criminal Code. The Author stresses some doubts about the fulfilment of all EU requirements which were the cause of introducing the misdemeanour into the Polish criminal law system in 2004. Some of the statutory features of the offence from Art. 264a § 1 of the Criminal Code were analysed with special attention paid to controversies over the values protected by the offence and to interpretation problems referring to the relationship to Art. 264 of the Criminal Code and Art. 49a of the Code on Petty Offences, as well as to doubts referring to the possibility of applying extraordinary mitigation of punishment to the perpetrator of this act.
PL
Artykuł dotyczy wybranych problemów wykładni art. 264a k.k. Autorka zwraca uwagę na wątpliwości co do pełnego wypełnienia wymogów unijnych, które były przyczyną wprowadzenia tego występku do polskiego systemu prawa karnego w 2004 r. Analizie poddano wybrane znamiona występku z art. 264a § 1 k.k., odnosząc się do sporów na temat przedmiotu ochrony tego przestępstwa, a także do problemów wykładni związanych z relacją do art. 264 k.k. i art. 49a k.w. oraz dotyczących możliwości nadzwyczajnego złagodzenia kary za ten czyn.
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