PL
The Victim’s Retaliatory Response to Offences Against His Honour And Physical Integrity and the Principle of ‘de sua malitia nemodebet commodum reportare’ SummaryThe aim of this paper is to discuss a victim’s retaliatory actionagainst the perpetrator of an offence against his honour and physicalintegrity as a circumstance admitting the waiving of penalisation. Thepossibility for the offender to evade penalisation simply because thevictim retaliated seems to contradict the principle that the offendershould draw no benefit from the offence (de sua malitia nemo debetcommodum reportare). The regulation adopted in the Polish CriminalCode (kodeks karny, k.k.) appears to favour the offender who receiveda retaliatory response from the victim, over and above the situation inwhich the victim took no measures to retaliate against the offender.The article also highlights the difference in the legal consequences ofthe waiving of penalties respectively for the perpetrator and the retaliating victim. This differentiation, which puts the retaliating victimin a worse position than the offender, also appears to be incompatiblewith the cited principle of criminalisation.