Rule of law vs. public security: controversy regarding dangerous offenders in Poland

• In Event: Legal Order and Social Control: Comparative Analyses

Abstract

Most European legal systems know the so called security measures imposed because of predicted offender’s dangerousness. They may be imposed in addition to punishment and are of indeterminate character. But in 2009 European Court of Human Rights convicted Germany for violation of the European Convention on Human Rights because of the possibility to apply security measures retroactively. In 2013 similar issue emerged in Poland. In 1989 Polish Parliament adopted an amnesty bill which commuted all death sentences to 25 years of imprisonment (life imprisonment was unknown at that time in Poland). Two among the pardoned were sexually motivated serial killers, considered to pose a serious risk also in the future. One of them was to be released in February 2014. This resulted in various attempts to keep him detained after release from prison, because of his supposed psychiatric and psychological disturbances. The law adopted in November of 2013 tried to ‘medicalize’ the problem and to detach proposed measures from any association with reaction to original offence. It provoked criticism on constitutional and psychiatric grounds. The main charge is that under pretence of treatment it provides for the possibility of indefinite confinement because of security reasons.

Author

• Krzysztof Piotr Krajewski, Jagielonian University