THEORETICA
Prof. Andrzej Bałandynowicz - Environmental protection in the light of cognitive criminological analysis
Abstract
Criminal law is ineffective in matters of preventing the ever-increasing degradation of the human environment. However, the issue of crimes against the environment has recently become the focus of criminal law both on the basis of domestic regulations and international law. In the Directive of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the protection of the environment through criminal law of November 19, 2008, which is essential for the consideration of this work, we read that „the Community is concerned about the significant increase in crimes against the environment and their consequences, which increasingly extend beyond the borders of the countries where these crimes are committed. Such crimes pose a threat to the environment and therefore require an appropriate response”. The preamble goes on to say that existing sanction systems have been deemed insufficient to ensure full compliance with environmental regulations, so strengthening this protection through the use of criminal sanctions seems indispensable as a sign of social condemnation that is more deterrent than administrative sanctions or civil law compensation mechanisms. Without stopping here to analyze the aforementioned directive, it should only be added that this act defines a catalog of acts and behaviors that Community countries are obliged to recognize as criminal offenses, and obliges Community countries to ensure that legal entities are also liable for environmental crimes. Environmental criminal law stands in a special position in the legal order – on one hand, it is established as a regulation of environmental law, administrative law, on the other hand, it is subject to the principles inherent in criminal law. Thus, it is important for the effectiveness of the legal system to adapt the institutions of criminal law to a very young, unexplored field such as environmental protection.
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Monika Wolińska PhD, The Mazovian Academy in Płock - Health well-being of convicts and the effectiveness and efficiency of punishment
Abstract
The penitentiary institution is not a creation of modern times. Nor is it a one-dimensional creation; the principles and models of operation used in it have undergone significant modifications over time. However, the prison itself has survived, as has society's reliance on imprisonment as a means of social control. We rely on imprisonment while remaining blind to the falsity of our assumptions about its role and effectiveness: „Imprisonment rarely improves anyone, it has already corrupted many to the ground”[1]. It is difficult to hold penitentiary institutions responsible for this state of affairs. Rather, it is the inadequacy of the methods and means of influence used there to meet the individual needs of the inmates that makes imprisonment infrequently prevent recidivism and degradation of behavior in a deviant direction. The reflection presented in the article focuses on the health well-being of the incarcerated as a category that affects their ability to successfully desist from crime. Previous research suggests that the relationship between incarceration and do-brotherhood is complex and linked to a number of variables. They also indicate that imprisonment is an inherently debilitating experience. Therefore, imprisonment should always be an instrument of last resort, used only when other forms cannot be used to provide a person with such goods as „correction”, „inclusion” and „restoration”.
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Prof. Grzegorz Maroń, University of Rzeszow - Gloss to the judgment of the Polish Supreme Court of October 13, 2021, I NSNk 1/21
Abstract
The article is a commentary to the judgment of the Polish Supreme Court of October 13, 2021, I NSNk 1/21. This judgment found that the journalist, describing the pro-abortion so-called “black protest” in the Internet TV program as „neo-Nazi rush”, „feminazist rush”, „Nazism” and calling the demonstrators „a bunch of complete gaffs” and „total fools” did not commit the crime of defamation (Article 212 of the Polish Penal Code) to the detriment of one of the participants of the assembly. The Supreme Court rightly accepted, referring in particular to the Strasbourg jurisprudence, that the mere offensiveness of statements does not mean that they are defamatory within the meaning of criminal law. The use of offensive terms against a personally unindividualized victim in a public debate on a socially important issue properly was not treated in a given case as a crime of defamation. The Supreme Court is also right, raising the requirement that the courts hearing cases under Art. 212 of the Penal Code should remain neutral and impartial towards the views presented in a pluralist and democratic society, without asymmetrically limiting the public discourse. However, one should be skeptical about the Supreme Court’s use of the conceptual and normative category of the “right to offend” others.
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Maciej Nawacki PhD, judge – The National Council of the Judiciary as a specific authority supervising the processing of personal data within the judicial system
Abstract
The subject of the article is the issue of the establishment, legal nature of the National Council of the Judiciary as a specific authority supervising the processing of personal data within the judicial system. The study presents the analysis of one of the key exceptions from the system of supervision of personal data processing operations – the separate supervision of courts’ compliance with personal data protection rules when acting in their judicial capacity. As a rule, the supervision, in accordance with the GDPR, is carried out by independent national supervisory authorities.
The considerations, preceded by the presentation of the genesis of the data protection system in the judiciary, were based on the examples of institutional models of the special supervision authorities existing in Europe. The author draws attention to the principles of appointing and functioning of the special supervisory bodies. The legal analysis indicates that the National Council of the Judiciary meets the systemic independence standards required from the special supervisory body dedicated to the judiciary.
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Daniel Strzelecki, judge - Interpretation of intertemporal rules concerning adjudication in subject cumulative judgment from the act of february 20, 2015 and june 19, 2020
Abstract
In the study attempted an interpretation intertemporal rules regulating temporary issues occurring in connection with act changes, which relates to cumulative judgment. These kind of changes were made two times in 2015 and 2020, and every time adjudication a cumulative penalty was completely remodeled. In fact, these changes relate only to adjudicating an cumulative penalty by cumulative judgment, because sententing in the subject of cumulative penalty in one proceeding, for obvious reasons, does not appear problematics of temporal correlation between the date of the judgment and the date of the crime or related to submission adjudicated penalties execution.
There is no need to convince that correct decoding legal norms described in these intertemporal rules has significant importance for adjudication on cumulative penalty, and in consequence, also for the legal situations of convicts.
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Grzegorz Ocieczek PhD, Paweł Opitek PhD, prosecutors - The analysis of the definition of virtual currencies from the act of 1 March 2018 on counteracting money laundering and terrorist financing
Abstract
The following article discusses in detail legal definition of virtual currencies which can be found in article 2, section 2, point 26 of the act of 1 March 2018 on counteracting money laundering and terrorist financing. The discussion on the importance and the role of the above definitions in legal texts serves as a departure point. What follows next, is the interpretation of phrases which comprise the elements in article 2, section 2, point 26 of the AML bill, that is, ‘digital value transformation’, fungible in economic circulation into legal tender, ‘accepted as a medium of circulation’, ‘electronically stored or transferred or the object of e-commerce. ’The article concludes with some thesis formed on the basis of the above analysis.
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Karol Borchólski PhD, prosecutor - Demonstration, manifestation, spontaneous assembly, and the crime of active participation in a public gathering (Article 254 of the Criminal Code)
Abstract
The author analyzes Article 254 of the Penal Code, which criminalizes active participation in a gathering whose participants commit an attack on a person or property against the background of a demonstration, demonstration, and the regulations of the Law on Assemblies, including the provisions on spontaneous assembly. The author points out the differences between legal assemblies provided for in the Law on Assemblies and the gathering criminalized by Article 254 of the Criminal Code. The article also describes, based on court records, exemplary cases of crimes qualified by Article 254 of the Criminal Code.
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Krystyna Patora PhD, prosecutor - Living law
Abstract
The subject of the article is a review of judicial decisions concerning the interpretation of features of money laundering offence from article 299 § 1 of the Criminal Code. The analysis of court decisions focuses on those issued in recent years and relating to the contentious features of the offence of money laundering. The aim of this article is to indicate the effects of judicial interpretation on the limits of criminal liability of persons found guilty of committing the guilty acts and money laundering also with regard to the forfeiture of property benefits, predicate offense, and being the subject of money laundering enforcement activities. Court case law, in specific cases, indicated the limits of penalizing the money laundering. Without negating the position of the courts in the presented judgments which concern large multi-person cases and large benefits, it should be discussed whether in fact each predicate offence, regardless of the amount of benefit it brings, may in the case of introducing this benefit to the market, constitute the grounds for prosecution for money laundering. Such a wide field of criminalization also results in elimination of stolen goods.
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Michał Burtowy, advocate - Compensation liability in the constitutional, comparative and judicial perspective
Abstract
Liability for damages is a theoretically and practically significant issue, deriving its source from the deepest ethical and social values, having legal roots, and therefore taking a place in constitutional considerations. Despite universal sources, liability for the damage caused to another person is regulated differently in various legal systems – which justifies comparative legal analyzes. On the other hand, its practical importance prompts reflection, the basis of which will be decisions of common courts and the Supreme Court, in cases related to liability for damages.
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Janusz Konecki Phd, judge - The use of a preventive measure in the form of pre-trial detention against an insane perpetrator of a prohibited act – selected issues
Abstract
The article presents an analysis of selected issues concerning the application of a preventive measure in the form of pre-trial detention against an insane offender. It presents the admissibility of the occurrence in the given circumstances of the case of the general prerequisite from Article 249 § 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. and special prerequisites from Article 258 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It also presents the procedural consequences in the scope of the possibility of temporary arrest in the case when the only premise for the application of temporary arrest was the concern about a severe punishment threatening the perpetrator, and in the course of proceedings there are premises for recognising that the perpetrator was not sane at the time of the act, which justifies the discontinuation of proceedings and application of a security measure in the form of placement in a closed psychiatric facility.
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Bolesław Kurzępa Phd, assistant professor on Rzeszow University of Technology – Suspension of criminal proceedings. Knotty issues
Abstract
The subject of the article is to present the knotty issues of an important institution of criminal procedural law, which is the suspension of criminal proceedings. It presents the grounds for suspension contained primarily in Article 22 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, but also indicates other regulations that allow the suspension of already conducted proceedings. It then discusses the prerequisites for the suspension of proceedings., the possibility of filing a complaint against the decision to suspend the proceedings, and the activities performed during the suspension.
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[1] J. Makarewicz, Kodeks karny z komentarzem, Lwów 1938, s. 42.
