REMARKS ON CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR CONTINUOUS CRIME IN VIEW OF THE DRAFT AMENDMENT TO THE PENAL CODE OF 25 JANUARY 2019
The study contains an analysis and evaluation of some legal solutions proposed in the draft amendment to criminal law of 25 January 2019, especially regarding the sentence, both statutory and judicial. Attention was paid to changes that constitute the most vivid manifestations of the tendency clearly outlined in the draft — expressed explicitly in the assumptions of the postulated changes — towards increasing the repressive norms of the Penal Code of 1997. This is carried out on three main levels — 1 increasing the severity of sanctions for individual, selected types of crimes, 2 extending the application of the extraordinary institution to tighten the penalties and 3 changes to the court directive on the sentence. The study focuses on changes concerning the foundations and rules of the extraordinary progression of punishment, in particular on the modification referring to criminal liability for an offense committed in the conditions of a continuous act covered by the formula of Article 12 § 1 of the Penal Code. In this case, the project provides for mandatory toughening of the penalty by raising the lower liability threshold by half, and the upper one by two. In this regard, both the arguments of the position approving such a solution and the views of the part of the criminal law doctrine which fully accepts the law adopted in the Penal Code of 1997 and which are binding in this respect are presented.