University of Łódź

English abstract: The author conducted empirical research on the coherence of actual decisions on the type and severity of punishments imposed by judges. The empirical analysis undertaken by the author had a dual structure. It consisted of an examination of court files of actual criminal cases and a questionnaire study conducted among professional criminal judges. The results of the questionnaire study are presented in this article. The questionnaire study was based on an empirical experimental model. Decisions made by judges during a laboratory simulation differ widely even though the facts and legal rules are the same. Judges do not coherently translate sentencing factors into specific criminal penalties. There is no common translation factor. What is more, judges’ decisions differ depending on whether they are made in isolation or by comparison to cases belonging to another category.

Keywords: empirical research, incommensurability of values, incoherence of punishments, criminal law

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(43)/2025, pp. 7-21.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.2.7

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This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

University of Silesia in Katowice

English abstract: The principle of nullum crimen sine lege is nowadays recognized as the standard of the rule of law. This doctrine prohibits the use of analogies and extensive interpretation of legal provisions to the disadvantage of the perpetrator. The starting point of these considerations is that texts of criminal provisions vary in nature. Therefore a question should be asked about the nature of these prohibitions in relation to various provisions. A separate problem is to distinguish inference by analogy from legal interpretation. The presented considerations are aimed at answering the question whether the nullum crimen sine lege principle allows determining the linguistic limits for the interpretation of criminal law. The analyses are illustrated by examples from the field of criminal case law. The article aims to provide reflection on the acceptable limits of interpretation of criminal law, if such limits can be defined. The considerations end with general conclusions.

Keywords: nullum crimen sine lege, limits of legal interpretation, legal interpretation, criminal law, theory of law

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(23)/2020, pp. 81-95.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2020.2.81

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Jagiellonian University

English abstract: The aim of the article is to indicate some of the axiological problems faced by the legislator in the law-making process. They are clearly visible in those legal regulations that are introduced in response to crisis situations. The presented example – terrorist attack by hijacking a plane – is not only used to demonstrate dilemmas which in this situation must be settled by the legislator preparing relevant legal provisions, but it is also a pretext for enriching the discussion on the axiological aspect of the law. The article focuses on the so-called natural helplessness of law in axiological matters, law inflation and the problem of responsibility. The author concludes that issues indicated in the article cannot be solved in the light of current Constitutional Court’s judgements, which are treated as a reference point of the discussed issues.

Keywords: cultural defence, multiculturalism, ethnocentrism, militant ethnocentrism, criminal law, minority rights

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(3)/2011, pp. 47-60.

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University of Szczecin

Abstract: If sociologists are to be trusted, reflexivity, focused on itself and devoid of any religious or at least ideological framework, leads to the weakening of control mechanisms. Such changes are accompanied by the polarization of social classes and by the exclusion of the so-called underclass (which certainly includes a vast majority of criminals) from the civil society. In the doctrine of criminal law of “mature modernism”, within the framework of a liberal-democratic state, the civil society, together with the idea of communication, is supposed to constitute a central reference point in the research on criminal liability. Reflexivity brings up new problems. New citizen-oriented criminal law is being shaped, based upon mediation and communication (e.g. restorative justice, Expressive Theory). The civil society does not include the area of politics or political nature of things, where the problem is not the justification of the punishment but the effectiveness of mere spatial isolation. In this sense, it is difficult to talk about the merits of the emancipation of an individual from the limitations imposed by the society. The weakening of any external authority and of political duties owed to the state is replaced by self-control proper to reflexive modernity only in cases where the individuals have adequate intellectual and ethical predispositions. Disappearance of the influence of external rules and values together with the mechanism of exclusion from the civil society results in the weakening of self-control and in selfish care only about one’s own perspective (but also in repressive subordination by the state). Such a state of affairs creates favourable conditions for objectifying criminal liability, abandoning the concept of guilt, and for attempts to provide an ethical justification of penalty – which are concepts taken from the “world of citizens”.

Language: English

Keywords: reflexivity, criminal law, philosophy of law, restorative justice, resentment, CLS

Published: Number 2(13)/2016, pp. 28-38.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2016.2.28

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Number of downloads: 545