Abstract
In the previous chapters, I discussed some famous cases that appear often in the literature. Most of these cases are from common law systems. In order to demonstrate that the theory that I propose is generally applicable, I the present chapter I provide examples of pragmatic effects in the law in the Polish legal system (a continental system). I select examples from civil and criminal law and hope that this shows how the strategic framework proposed in the present book is a universal mechanism that is not restricted to any particular type of legal system.
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Notes
- 1.
Art. 148. § 1. Whoever kills a man is subject to imprisonment for a period not shorter than 8 years [up to 15 years on the basis of article 32], 25 years or life imprisonment.
- 2.
Ruling from the 15th of February 2012 II KK 193/11 http://www.sn.pl/sites/orzecznictwo/Orzeczenia2/II%20KK%20193-11-1.pdf.
- 3.
Art. 160 § 1. Whoever exposes a human being to [in any way that causes—author’s note] an immediate danger of loss of life, a serious bodily injury, or a serious impairment of health shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 3 years. § 2. If the perpetrator has a duty to take care of the person exposed to danger, he shall be subject to the penalty of the deprivation of liberty for a term of between 3 months and 5 years. § 3. If the perpetrator of an act specified in §1 or 2 acts unintentionally he shall be subject to a fine, the penalty of restriction of liberty or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to 1 year. § 4. A perpetrator who voluntarily averted the impending danger shall not be subject to the penalty for the offence specified in § 1–3. § 5. The prosecution of the offence specified in § 3 shall occur if the injured person files a motion.
- 4.
‘the legislator must answer whether a certain type of causing or allowing of effect occurring is prohibited under the risk of punishment, in virtue of its typical social detriment, that licenses the penalization of an action without considering the context of a concrete case. Broadly speaking, a penalized action needs to be typically blameworthy [which means that there needs to be a broad agreement on its blameworthiness]. Could an attempt to establish legislative intentions about the construction of “material types of crimes” be successful? Are there clear statutory or non-statutory criteria that enable warranted conclusions on the subject? One might wonder whether the present penal code, which licenses the claim that only an effect (of an unintentional crime), together with a substantial increase of risk for the protected legal good, is “blameworthy” independently of the context of the case at stake. Non-statutory argumentation (moral or political rationalizations) seems unclear. The search for such criteria is doomed to be arbitrary (independently of its merits). The Highest Court stated that the “blameworthiness of effect of unintentional crime type” has to be ‘qualified’ (important, blatant). Let us emphasize that in comparison to intentional crimes, unintentional ones have a lower penalty (for example: at least 8 years of imprisonment in the case of murder, from art. 148 § 1 of the penal code and at most 5 years of imprisonment for unintentionally causing death, from art. 155 of the penal code). You could counter-argue – and this has grounds in the statute – that the abstract blameworthiness of causing “effect” has been differentiated at the level of punishment, rather than at the level of substantial criteria of effect type crimes.’ [Translated by IS] (Małecki 2013).
- 5.
‘Is it the legislator that is supposed to settle unfinished scientific disputes and discussions which do not provide a translation of the jurisprudential criteria of “objective ascription of effect” to statutory language? A worry arises, confirmed by the effect of the work of the “Komisja Kodyfikacyjna” (commission for the writing of legal codes), that it is currently an unfeasible task to give a precise wording of these criteria in the penal code that is free of inconsistencies (which usually have to be erased thanks to the intuition and common sense of a judge). Our skepticism is greater when we notice that even the proponents of a statutory regulation of a “normative” basis for the “ascription of effect”, (…), disagree on whether the planned regulation should take into account all the criteria, or, rather, only some of them.’ [Translated by IS] (Giezek and Kaczmarek 2013).
- 6.
Art. 545. § 1. Wniosek o ubezwłasnowolnienie może zgłosić: (1) małżonek osoby, której dotyczy wniosek o ubezwłasnowolnienie; (2) jej krewni w linii prostej oraz rodzeństwo; (3) jej przedstawiciel ustawowy.
- 7.
- 8.
Art. 952. § 1. Jeżeli istnieje obawa rychłej śmierci spadkodawcy albo jeżeli wskutek szczególnych okoliczności zachowanie zwykłej formy testamentu jest niemożliwe lub bardzo utrudnione, spadkodawca może oświadczyć ostatnią wolę ustnie przy jednoczesnej obecności co najmniej trzech świadków.
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Skoczeń, I. (2019). The Exchange Between Legislature and Courts: Examples of Strategic Behavior from the Polish Legal System. In: Implicatures within Legal Language. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 127. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12532-5_6
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