Sławomir Piekarczyk
University of Silesia in Katowice
Zygmunt Tobor
University of Silesia in Katowice
English abstract: The case whereby the President of the Republic of Poland applied the right of pardon towards individuals who had not been validly convicted has revived ongoing discussions regarding whether such an action is consistent with the Constitution. The problematic aspect in this regard is not only the admissibility of so-called individual abolition but also the very manner of granting pardon while bypassing the procedure provided for in the Code of Criminal Procedure. Since the contentious nature of the issue arises from ambiguities in the Constitution’s text, this study’s research objective is to present useful tools outside of this text that may assist in its interpretation. To achieve this, an analysis of legislative materials from sessions of the National Assembly’s Constitutional Commission is conducted, and the established practice (constitutional custom) concerning the problematic issues is discussed. The research conclusions warrant the thesis that these extratextual arguments provide strong justifications for specific interpretative hypotheses. Regarding the first issue, the hypothesis is that the right of pardon does not encompass individual abolition. The hypothesis concerning the second issue is the inadmissibility of a procedure that bypasses the Code of Criminal Procedure regulations.
Key words: power of pardon, legislative materials, established practice, legal text interpretation
Language: polish
Published: Number 1(2026), pp. 5–21.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2026.1.5
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