The issue of obligatory protection in the light of the amendment to the Criminal Code of 16 September 2011
The aim of the present article was to search for the answer: why did the legislator only on 16 September 2011 incorporate the changes into the Executive Criminal Code regarding the indications for receiving mandatory defence. The author also sought the occasion to discuss the questions arising from such measure: to what extent do the norms providing for the obligation of defence in the Executive Criminal Code commeasure with the norms included in the Code of Criminal Procedure, what kind of standards for mandatory defence are already set, i.e. by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland case law, what are the conditions for mandatory defence in executive procedure, or what are the limits towards the right to choose defence counsel. The results of the analysis — in the matter suggested in this article — became the basis for formulating the conclusion that one of the most important issues of mandatory defence is that the incorporated changes opened a wide range of new possibilities both to a judge and a convict. Nonetheless, the prospects of those changes are truly luminous.