Concurrence of Offences and Combined Punishment in Polish Criminal Law

Abstract

This  article  is  devoted  to  the  analysis  of  the  prerequisites  of  the  concurrence  of  offences  and  the  conditions  of imposing  combined  punishment  in  Polish  criminal  law.  Both  matters  are  presented  against  the  broader  context  of  the  reduction  mechanisms  serving  the  purpose  of  criminal  liability  rationalisation  in  cases  of  evaluation  of  many  acts  committed  by  the  same  perpetrator.  Starting  with  the  rule  of  unity,  fundamental  for  the  Polish  criminal  law  system,  according  to  which  the  same  act  can  constitute  only  one  offence,  the  institution  of  the  concurrence  of  offences  has  been  presented  against  a background  of  the  following  constructions  specifically  shaped  in  the  Polish  law:  the  continuous  offence,  the  sequence  of  offences  and  the  negligible  concurrence  of  offences.  In  each  of  the  above  mentioned  cases  the  multiplicity  of  acts  committed  by  the  same  offender  is  the  basis  of  evaluation,  and  due  to  the  application  of  one  of  these  institutions  this  multiplicity  does  not  transform  into  the  multiplicity  of  offences  and  as  a result  does  not  lead  to  the  imposition  of  the  combined  punishment.  Hence  it  has  been  demonstrated  that  the  reduction  mechanisms  described  above  prevent  the  emergence  of  the  situation  of  the  concurrence  of  offences  and  finally  the  imposition  of  the  combined  punishment.  They  form  therefore  the  normative  foreground  of  these  institutions  which  is  specific  for  the  Polish  criminal  law  system.  The  text  contains  also  the  analysis  of  the  statutory  prerequisites  for  the  imposition  of  the  combined  punishment,  which  in  the  Polish  criminal  law  form  the  basis  of  the  division  of  the  concurrence  of  offences  into  two  categories:  the  real  concurrence  in  case  of  which  the  imposition  of  the  combined  punishment  is  possible  and  the  concurrence  of  offences  in  case  of  which  such  a possibility  does  not  exist.  The  detailed  conditions  of  the  imposition  of  the  combined  punishment  have  also  been  presented,  especially  the  bases,  known  by  the  Polish  legal  system,  for  the  imposition  as  a combined  punishment  of  a punishment  more  severe  than  the  individual  punishments  imposed  for  the  offences  which  are  in  concurrence.  As  far  as  the  second  of  the  above  mentioned  categories  is  concerned,  the  author  has  presented  the  conditions  of  executing  the  multiple  punishments  imposed  for  multiple  offences  –  as  a rule  they  are  executed  sequentially.