ZMIANY W ZAKRESIE KARY 25 LAT POZBAWIENIA WOLNOŚCI NA GRUNCIE KODEKSU KARNEGO Z 1997 R. ORAZ PRÓBA ICH OCENY

Abstract

The Act of 7 July 2022 deleted the penalty of 25 years of imprisonment from the list of penalties in Article 32 of the Polish Criminal Code. As a rule, such a solution should be assessed positively: after all, between a prison sentence of up to 15 years and a penalty of 25 years of imprisonment there was too large a gap, forcing the imposition of penalties that were not always fair. Such situations occurred in particular when, in a particular case, the penalty of up to 15 years of imprisonment appeared to be too lenient and the penalty of 25 years of imprisonment too severe. The problem, however, is that as a result of the amendment, the upper limit of imprisonment was increased to 30 years, which led to some inconsistencies in the Polish Criminal Code. In addition, such a legislative solution has resulted in a rather serious tightening of penalties for some crimes so far also punishable by 25 years of imprisonment, despite the fact that the number of crimes in this area is currently falling. This study attempts to assess the introduction of a sentence of up to 30 years in lieu of a 25 year’s prison sentence, taking into account the de lege ferenda postulates formulated so far in the relevant literature.