A gloss to the Supreme Court Judgment of 5 March 2019, IV KK 484/17

Abstract

This gloss discusses the issue of the prosecutor’s supervision over preparatory proceedings carried out by a financial authority of preparatory proceedings and the procedural consequences of the prosecutor undertaking supervision of such proceedings. The author is of the opinion that a procedural act performed by the prosecutor consisting in extending the period of enquiry carried out by the financial authority of preparatory proceedings for more than 6 months, does not constitute a decision which is accidental in nature and may not be deemed to be a technical act. Such an act is supervisory in nature. Consequently, if it is assumed that the prosecutor’s decision on the extension under Article 153 § 1 sentence 3 of the Penal and Fiscal Code for the period of more than 6 months of the enquiry concerning a fiscal offence, conducted by a financial authority of preparatory proceedings, means that the said prosecutor undertakes supervision over the said enquiry, then Article 155 § 1 and 2 of the Penal and Fiscal Code must be applied for the purpose of preparing and filing an indictment with the court. In accordance with the law applicable as of 1 July 2015, the financial authority of preparatory proceedings which conducted the investigation as well as the enquiry under the prosecutor’s supervision must prepare an indictment taking into consideration its formal requirements as set out in Article 119 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 332 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 333 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in connection with Article 113 § 1 of the Penal and Fiscal Code, and it must subsequently transfer it to the prosecutor, who approves it and files it with the court. The act of filing an indictment with the court by the Customs Office, where the enquiry was under the prosecutor’s supervision, and where such indictment was filed without the prosecutor’s approval, must be deemed to have been undertaken by an unauthorized body, which constitutes a negative procedural premise which is the absence of indictment by an authorised prosecuting organ (Article 17 § 1 point 9 of the Code of Criminal Procedure).