Stosowanie prawa łaski przez Prezydenta RP

• Authors: Ryszard Piotrowski
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The Polish Constitution provides – in its Article 139 – that the President of the Republic “exercises the right of pardon”. The exact meaning of this right and the nature and extent of the activities to be undertaken by the President are not defined in the basic law, though. One’s understanding of the “right of pardon”, however, must not lead to results that produce an unconstitutional interpretation of the Constitution – and this, I believe, is the case with the interpretation to the effect that the exercise of the right of pardon extends beyond the pardoning itself, i.e. absolving a lawfully convicted person of the punishment meted out to them and of other effects of punishment, and that it also permits individual abolition, i.e. exempting the person concerned from responsibility, thus making criminal proceedings impossible. The President is part of the executive branch of government, and his competences in respect of blocking criminal proceedings must not rest on presumption. Under the Constitution, courts are independent and separate from other branches of government. But there are grounds to interpret the right of pardon, referred to in Article 139 of the Constitution, as encompassing limited individual abolition, where the President exempts a person under a criminal proceeding from the outcome of this proceeding (i.e. a lawful sentence, no longer subject to appeal), but where courts are not exempt from their constitutional responsibilities and where there is no demolishing of the right to fair trial – which in fact is the right to seek the truth, enjoyed by everybody, including the society and the court itself. The criminal trial of a person under individual abolition should be crowned with the passing of a lawful sentence, no longer subject to appeal – but in this case a guilty sentence would not be enforced, because of the right of pardon having been granted prior to the passing of the sentence. Legal disputes over exercise of the right of pardon are, in fact, disputes over application of the Constitution – and this application should be founded on respect for the Constitution as the basic law of the Republic of Poland. An interpretation of the Constitution must not justify practices that threaten the democratic identity of a state governed by the rule of law, such state having been proclaimed by the Constitution itself.

Keywords

EN

Constitution,; right of pardon,; rule of law,; criminal proceedings,; President; of the Republic,; individual abolition,; right to fair trial

• Publisher: Instytut Nauk Politycznych Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
• Journal: Studia Politologiczne
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 42
• Pages: 89-106

Contributors

author

Ryszard Piotrowski